Chris Hohn can boast of several things. He has employed the current British Prime Minister, Rushi Sunak, at the activist investment fund he founded and has run since 2003, The Children's Investment Fund (TCI). He has also received the highest salary known to date in the United Kingdom, of 343 million pounds (388 million euros) and has been decorated as a knight of the British Empire. He can even boast of starring in one of the most expensive divorces that the English tabloids can remember. However, his great achievement is another. What he is really known for is for giving up the sleep of the first managers of large corporations around the world, including some of the Ibex. His latest intervention at Cellnex has not disappointed.
Born in England in 1966, Hohn is the son of a Jamaican mechanic and a law clerk. Number one in promotion at the University of Southampton, he studied an MBA at Harvard and signed up for the most sophisticated trend of the moment: hedge funds willing to influence the management of companies.
His guild is high-flying. They are activist investors. They enter the capital of listed companies to change the direction, defend a strategic change or, simply, turn the business upside down. The TCI firm is one of those that raises the heartbeat of senior managers, but it also has its friendly side: it dedicates part of the profit to philanthropy, which has earned Hohn the title of Sir, although his prodigality is not without nuances. . According to The Guardian, TCI depends on a company based in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands.
The activist is a particular species in the jungle of the market. He goes beyond the financial complacency of the average shareholder, who settles for the dividend. He challenges the managers, who get their hair on end as soon as one of the priests of this particular discipline appears. Hohn is one of them, but there are others like Paul Singer, at the helm of Elliott Management; Daniel S. Loeb, director of the Third Point fund, or Carl Icahn and his feared Icahn Management of him.
Vegetarian and a regular at yoga, Hohn collects large game. He's scored so many at Visa, ABN Amro or Alphabet that they often begin with a friendly letter to the board with a declaration of war included in the second paragraph. On other occasions, his British good manners are accompanied by the obligatory media campaign. Just a month ago, he dissuaded Airbus from making a big acquisition and has long called on Google parent to downsize.
Where he differs from his fellow agitators is in focusing on Spain. He made his debut with Aena, forcing it to present a climate plan to shareholders every year, and less than a month ago he openly aligned himself in favor of Ferrovial's management and its plan to move the headquarters to the Netherlands.
His latest and brilliant campaign has been that of Cellnex, in which he has managed to speed up the appointment of a new CEO. The previous one, Tobías Martínez, had announced his departure at the beginning of the year after several years of strong growth and, since then, the telecommunications tower operator had delayed in the search for a replacement. Until Hohn's letter arrived.
In the letter, the activist criticized the "poor corporate governance" of Cellnex and asked for several things: his entry into the board of directors, agility in the replacement of Martínez and the dismissal of the president Bertrand Kan and two directors.
The effect has been immediate and the Cellnex board of directors has given Hohn everything he asked for. He has been granted a seat on the board under 9% of his capital. Kan has been ousted as president and replaced by Anne Bouverot, well versed in the industry thanks to her experience at Orange. And most importantly, Cellnex already has a new CEO, the Italian Marco Patuano, with experience in telecom groups such as TIM. The victory has been undeniable and an example of shareholder activism.
