Having an activist investor clamber on to the company share register must be disconcerting. No surprise, perhaps, when all too often what follows is a call for the chief executive’s head or for the group to break itself up. With Merlin Entertainments, a far subtler version of this is playing out.
Valueact Capital, the US investor with a 9.3 per cent stake in the theme park operator, is praising management and its strategy, blaming the wider stock market for what it believes is a valuation that is far too low. Its conclusion, and hence the self-styled “constructivist” push on management, is for the group to call time on listed life and negotiate with a buyer to go private.
Founded in 1999 through a management buyout,