Frontier Communications is being urged to begin an immediate review of its business and consider a possible sale, according to a letter from investment firm Jana Partners. The firm, which owns a stake in Frontier, warned that the cable company’s shares would continue to lag otherwise. “We wish for the Board to pursue whatever option generates the greatest risk-adjusted return for shareholders,” Barry Rosenstein and Scott Ostfeld, the firm’s two managing partners said in the letter. “We believe that a bona fide evaluation of strategic alternatives would lead the Board to conclude that a sale transaction offers the best risk-adjusted outcome for shareholders.”
Activist hedge fund Jana Partners and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board have bought 5.2% of the publishing, investment analysis and TV station company — and say that they may try to break it up. The investors reported in SEC filings Monday that they have “no present plan or proposal” for the company run by CEO Terry McGraw. But they plan to talk to McGraw-Hill’s directors, shareholders and others about changes “to improve shareholder value.”
