John Mutch has been a CEO of HNC software and was appointed the CEO of Peregrine Systems by Federal Bankruptcy court. He took Peregrine Systems from bankruptcy condition to the price tag of $425 millions (HP was the buyer). Since then he started a MV Advisors, an "Activist hedge fund".

What is an Activist Hedge Fund ? The strategy is to find technology companies which are undervalued compared to peers because of corporate governance issues and organize shareholder activism to improve them and in the process create market value. They do this by establishing big stock positions (starting from 4.9 percent which keeps you under SEC radar!), bargaining for board seats and then improving matters by possibly restructuring products, reviewing executive compensation, spin-off, merge as necessary and kick away non-performing executives!

An interesting business model and a good conversation...

Date: Oct/05/2007