(Bloomberg) -- Ancora Holdings Group is calling on broadband and video services provider Harmonic Inc. to explore a sale, people familiar with the matter said.
The activist investor wants San Jose, California-based Harmonic to initiate a strategic review and believes it would attract significant interest in a sale process, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.
Ancora, which is also pushing for changes at Forward Air Corp., is planning to engage with Harmonic’s board on its willingness to study strategic alternatives, according to the people. Ancora believes the company could fetch $20 a share in a sale, they said.
Harmonic fell 3.9% to close at $11.92 in New York trading on Friday, giving it a market value of about $1.4 billion. The size of Ancora’s stake in Harmonic, where it’s been invested since at least 2023, couldn’t be learned.
Harmonic is a provider of virtualized broadband and video delivery solutions, which help media companies and service providers to deliver video streaming and broadcast services to consumers. Ancora believes the company has strong products but poor investor communication, the people said.
A representative for Ancora declined to comment. A spokesperson for Harmonic couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Last year, Ancora called for changes to Harmonic’s board and for faster progress on the divestiture of the its video business. While Harmonic replaced Chief Executive Officer Patrick Harshman with Nimrod Ben-Natan, it said in April that market conditions didn’t “support its value creation objectives” for the video unit.
--With assistance from Ryan Gould.
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