Activist investor Bluebell closes hedge fund | USAEMALL.com

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Bluebell Capital Partners is closing its five-year-old activist hedge fund after struggling to raise funds from investors despite targeting big European companies in a series of high-profile campaigns. 

London-based Bluebell, which launched activist campaigns at companies including BP, Richemont and GSK, is giving back capital to external investors and will restructure itself, co-founder Marco Taricco told the Financial Times. 

“The commingled fund was too small,” said Taricco. “Fundraising is bloody difficult. Ours is a niche strategy.” 

The fund reached €100mn-€200mn of assets under management but its founders decided to close it after it failed to expand further. “It’s not worthwhile in terms of the economics,” said Taricco. “Once you pay the team and pay for the cost of the infrastructure you’ve put in place, you’re left with very little.”

Bluebell will still pursue activist bets through co-investments and advisory mandates, Taricco said.

The commingled fund, a vehicle that combines money from multiple investors, had gained about 8 per cent a year since launch, investors said. News of its closure was first reported by Bloomberg. 

Bluebell began life as an advisory firm, Bluebell Partners, in 2014. It was set up by Taricco and Giuseppe Bivona, who met at Columbia Business School in New York decades earlier. 

In this previous incarnation, the pair sold investment ideas to well-known activists such as Paul Singer’s Elliott Management and Jana Partners.

They would back the ideas with their own money alongside their larger partners’ investment, whilst also negotiating a profit-sharing arrangement. They worked with Elliott in Italian transportation company Ansaldo STS and with Jana at luxury retailer Tiffany. 

In 2019 the duo set up Bluebell Capital Partners with Francesco Trapani, the former chief executive of Italian jeweller Bulgari, and launched the hedge fund in November of that year.

Bluebell’s fund ran a highly-concentrated portfolio, focusing on medium-sized and large companies. It took only a small financial stake but often teamed up with much bigger players to amplify its voice in activist situations.

Its first campaign was at Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena, and in 2021 Bluebell became the public face of a campaign at French consumer goods group Danone, despite owning less than €20mn of shares in the company. The campaign eventually led to the ousting of Danone chief executive Emmanuel Faber. 

Not all of Bluebell’s campaigns have been successful. BlackRock saw off Bluebell’s proxy challenge to its founder Larry Fink’s dual role as chair and chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager.

In September 2022, Richemont shareholders rejected Bluebell’s campaign to shake up the board of the Swiss luxury group, handing a victory to billionaire founder Johann Rupert.

This year Bluebell has called on oil major BP to ditch its commitment to cut oil and gas output and to change other key parts of its strategy to transform the company into a clean energy provider.

It was also one of a number of top shareholders who called on FTSE 100 consumer giant Reckitt to separate the company’s hygiene and health divisions from its nutrition business.