If fund managers’ predictions meant anything, Smith & Nephew would no longer be a listed company. For the past three years the medical devices maker has often topped the Bloomberg index of businesses considered most likely to be bought. So far, it remains stubbornly independent.
Rumours have of course surrounded the business, most recently in October of a bid from its US rival Stryker, but nothing has materialised. In the absence of an offer, and at around the time that a Stryker takeover was being talked about, the activist hedge fund Elliott Management entered the scene.
Elliott is well known as a scourge of executive teams and is reported to have attempted to persuade Smith & Nephew to make strategic changes aimed at increasing its