Activist Jana Unloads Major Financial Stocks (ACE, AET, BAC, CI, LEHMQ, TROW, THG, WFC)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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burning-money-pic10Some investors love activist hedge funds.  They can correct many anti-shareholder practices or policies.  But it seems that the power of activists has been limited in the current economic environment.  Jana Partners LLC has exited or lowered stakes in many major financial institutions.  The pain in the sector looks like it was too much.

Jana’s filing disclosed  that it has eliminated its stakes in Ace Ltd. (NYSE: ACE), Aetna (NYSE: AET), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Cigna (NYSE: CI), Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (OTC-LEMHQ), T. Rowe Price Group Inc. (NASDAQ: TROW), The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. (NYSE: THG), and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC).

It is always possible these were just moved over to another entity, although the pain in the sector in Q4 and so far this year probably led even the bravest of the brave to call it a day.  And it is possible that this exit did not come by choice.

Jon C. Ogg
February 17, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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