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Cevian Capital is a Swedish investment firm founded in 1996 by
Christer Gardell Christer Gardell (born 1960) is a Swedish hedge fund manager. Gardell studied business at Stockholm School of Economics and graduated in the year 1984, worked at McKinsey & Company and was appointed CEO of Swedish investment company AB Custos in ...
and Lars Förberg, both of whom serve as managing partners. Backed by
Carl Icahn Carl Celian Icahn (; born February 16, 1936) is an American financier. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, a public company and diversified conglomerate holding company based in Sunny Isles Beach. Icahn takes l ...
, it is the largest activist investment firm in Europe. It has offices in
Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, Zurich, and
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. Formerly called Amaranth, Cevian has invested in such companies as
ABB ABB Ltd. is a Swedish- Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to crea ...
,
Danske Bank Danske Bank A/S is a Danish multinational banking and financial services corporation. Headquartered in Copenhagen, it is the largest bank in Denmark and a major retail bank in the northern European region with over 5 million retail customers. ...
,
ThyssenKrupp ThyssenKrupp AG (, ; stylized as thyssenkrupp) is a German industrial engineering and steel production multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It is the result of the 1999 merger of Thyssen AG and Krupp and h ...
,
Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...
,
G4S G4S is a British Multinational corporation, multinational private security company headquartered in London, England. The company was set up in 2004 when London-based Securicor amalgamated with Danish firm Group 4 Falck. The company offers a ran ...
,
TeliaSonera Telia Company AB is a Swedish multinational telecommunications company and mobile network operator present in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Telia also owns TV4 Media which includes TV4 in Sweden, MTV Oy in Fi ...
, and
Lindex Lindex is a Swedish fashion chain within the Finnish Stockmann Group. The company has around 5000 employees and approximately 480 stores in 18 markets in the Nordic countries, the Baltic States, Central Europe and the Middle East. In addition t ...
, and played a major role in the sale of
Skandia Skandia is a financial services corporation in Sweden. History Skandia started out as a Swedish insurance company in 1855. Today the brand operates in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Skandia also operates an internet bank called Skandiab ...
to
Old Mutual Old Mutual Limited is a pan-African investment, savings, insurance, and banking group. It is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, the Namibian Stock Exchange and the Botswana Stock Exchange. It was founded in S ...
.Butt, Rachel; Here are the 10 biggest activist money managers and some of their most impressive bets; Business Insider; June 17, 2016; http://nordic.businessinsider.com/top-10-biggest-activist-investors-2016-6?r=US&IR=T


Founding

Christer Gardell Christer Gardell (born 1960) is a Swedish hedge fund manager. Gardell studied business at Stockholm School of Economics and graduated in the year 1984, worked at McKinsey & Company and was appointed CEO of Swedish investment company AB Custos in ...
is co-founder and managing partner. Born in 1960, he graduated in business from the
Stockholm School of Economics The Stockholm School of Economics (SSE; sv, Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, HHS) is a private business school located in city district Vasastaden in the central part of Stockholm, Sweden. SSE offers BSc, MSc and MBA programs, along with ...
in 1984. After working as a management consultant at
McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...
, he was CEO of AB Custos from 1996 to 2001.Levy, Rachel; This Swedish $13 billion activist hedge fund is shaking up Europe; Business Insider; June 25, 2016; http://nordic.businessinsider.com/cevian-capital-biggest-activist-hedge-fund-in-europe-2016-6?r=US&IR=T Also holding the title co-founder and managing partner is Lars Förberg. Förberg also graduated from the
Stockholm School of Economics The Stockholm School of Economics (SSE; sv, Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, HHS) is a private business school located in city district Vasastaden in the central part of Stockholm, Sweden. SSE offers BSc, MSc and MBA programs, along with ...
. He worked with Gardell at AB Custos from 1997 to 2001 as Chief Investment Officer. Förberg is based in Zurich.


Investment activity

As of June 2016, Cevian had $13 billion in assets under management. As of September 2017, it had about $15.5 billion in AUM.Milne, Richard; Christer Gardell, Cevian Capital founder, on clearing out boards; Financial Times; September 10, 2017; https://www.ft.com/content/1fdd0a6c-92ed-11e7-a9e6-11d2f0ebb7f0 In 2006, Cevian launched Cevian Capital II, the largest dedicated active ownership fund in Europe. The firm invests only in Europe, although 70% of its capital comes from North America. It does not short stocks, use leverage, write open letters, or engage in proxy fights, and it believes in long-term investments. At first its investments were confined to Scandinavia; more recently, according to Zimmerman, the firm's investment focus has been "on the Nordics, UK, Germany and Switzerland," because these countries "have a combination of the clearest governance rules in favor of shareholders, good transparency as well as interesting companies." Cevian has not invested in southern or Central Europe, Zimmerman has said, "because we don't know those environments, and we don't have relationships there, and we can't be certain that the rules, formal and informal rules, are ones that we'll be comfortable with." Gardell has also stated that he and his colleagues need "to know the people, have networks, have a corporate governance tradition we're comfortable with" in order to make an investment. In 2012, at Cevian's urging, Cookson, a British engineering firm, spun off its performance materials division, increasing investment value for Cookson shareholders by over 25%. On December 16, 2018, ABB relented to pressure from Cevian and agreed to sell its poorly-performing Power Grids unit. In December 2017 Cevian sold its entire shares (8.2%) in Volvo Trucks to the Chinese Volvo owner Geely. Cevian thus achieved a profit of more than two billion euros.


References

{{Authority control Investment companies of Sweden