At Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Antonio Neri CEO is negotiating with an active investor with a history of forcing the CEO

Investment – it is known to be a long position instead of a short bet against the company – is a sharp investment for HPE and its CEO, Antonio Neri. Fourteen of the executives were forced to get out of their jobs after Elliot took a stake in their companies and demanded talks with their councils, According to Reuters.

Is the neck of Neri on the cutting block?

luck He asked the two companies to comment, but he does not want to talk to the record about what is going on between them. Hpe (No. 143 on Fortune 500“We appreciate the constructive inputs of all our shareholders”, but we refused to enter into details.

However, the sources that spoke luck He referred to several evidence, hiding in sight, about what Elliot wanted from Hpe.

Pricing

The most obvious sign of trouble occurred when Hpe published its profits in the first quarter in March, which mocked its shares approximately 16 % a day. Giving Interview on CNBC He admitted that the company made a mistake in calculating the cost of its stock, which harmed the company’s profitability.

“Near the end of the quarter, we realized that the cost of our stock was a little higher than the cost that we had at the prices. This is on us. This should never happen.”

This was underestimated. The screw has wiped more than $ 3 billion from the maximum HPE market.

Permanent stock

It also drew attention to the HPE price.

The day, the news broke out that Elliot wanted to influence the company, published by Jpmorgan Samik Chatterje and his team a research note saying that Eliott may have been “1) The deduction of HPE’s opponent on a better basis, such as independent peers.

Chatterje has also published a brutal schedule comparing HPE performance numbers against Dell and Cisco and Netapp. It has shown that Hpe was born only $ 494,000 per revenue employee, while Dell made $ 885,000:

HPE reserves appeared up recently after the Ministry of Justice brought down an investigation into its proposal Get juniper networks. But, since 2018, HPE shares have increased by 48 % to a little more than $ 21 per share. Meanwhile, the S&P rose 500 135 %. This is a bleak performance of a technical company that should benefit from the obsession around artificial intelligence.

Elliot is preferred to avoid the agent’s battles

Neri was the CEO for seven years. Meanwhile, there were six members of the 12th HPE board there for 10 years or more. Chairman of the Board, Patricia F. Rousseau has been there since 2015. Pressure is that it might be the right time for blood.

But the overthrow of Nairi may not be Elliot’s plan.

Another option is that HPE to give Elliott a seat on the blackboard and agree on a company to transfer the company. In one of Elliot’s other adventures, her assault on the oil refinery company Philips 66The investment that was made A call to shareholders This was shown that it is actually preferred to reach an increasing agreement with a company instead of escalation to the comprehensive civil war by voting the shareholder agent.

Elliot said at that time: “Over the past fifteen years, we have cooperated with more than 200 companies to reach useful solutions in a mutual way that enhances the value of shareholders. During this period, we only had to follow an American agent at this stage of the operation three times, which made Phillips 66 extremists.”

Although it is not clear what exactly happens between Hpe and Elliott, it is possible that the painting is in conversations with new stakeholders.

Hpe said luck He welcomed this step: “Hpe and our council keep a continuous dialogue with our shareholders on a set of issues. While we do not comment on specific communications, we may have with any shareholders we have, we appreciate constructive inputs for all our shareholders and all other stakeholders.”