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Ancora Holdings Group

Ancora is a wealth management and investor advisory firm located in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, with offices in Detroit and Naples, Florida. Founded in 2003, it began as family wealth and management boutique firm. It grew regularly until 2014 when the firm opened its activist advisory subsidiary, Ancora Alternatives, LLC. Over the past decade Ancora has built a reputation as a contender in the world of activist investing. It has targeted firms like Norfolk Southern Railroad, RB Global, Berry Global, C.H. Robinson and Kohls, Inc.

History

It began with fewer than 25 employees managing $2 billion (US) in assets. The firm’s identity was as a “boutique” family wealth and investment management firm that regularly won local awards for its community involvement and enjoyed a reputation as an excellent place to work. In 2013, the firm opened its first office outside of Ohio, in a Detroit suburb; the office is now in Bloomfield Hills, MI. In 2020, Ancora further expanded to Florida, with an office in Naples in the city’s Park Shore area.

The firm grew and became one of Northeast Ohio’s largest money management companies. Ancora provides retirement plans, wealth and asset management for individuals, institutions, foundations and families with high net worth through its companies like Ancora Advisors, Ancora Family Wealth Advisors, Ancora Alternatives, Inverness Securities and Ancora Retirement Plan Advisors. In 2024, Ancora had $9.5 billion (US) in assets under management and employed over 100 individuals in offices in Mayfield Hts. and Westlake Ohio, suburbs of Cleveland in addition to the offices in Michigan and Florida. Ancora Alternatives, one of the firm’s four registered investment advisors, had $1.3 billion in assets under management. In 2014, a company affiliated with Ancora purchased a 63,000 sq ft office building from Ferro Corp, which had undergone a restructuring. Ancora subsequently moved its headquarters to that building. Ancora Alternatives has been active in promoting gender diversity. In 2022, it nominated nine women to boards of companies in which it was invested, placing three, a figure second only to Elliott Management.

Leadership

Fred DiSanto has served as CEO since 2006 and as Chairman since 2014. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees at Case Western Reserve University and former Chair and current trustee of the Cleveland Sports Commission. He began in the investment community in 1985 with McDonald and Co. John Micklitsch is the President and Chief Investment Officer. James Chadwick serves as President of the Ancora subsidiary Ancora Alternatives, LLC where he heads the company’s activist strategy. John Bartles serves as president of the organizations’s Private Wealth Division, as well as sitting on the Executive Committee.

Mergers and acquisitions

In 2021, New York’s Focus Financial Partners acquired Ancora in an arrangement that provides Focus with better contact with high-net-worth Midwesterners and Ancora growth resources like back-office capabilities and enhanced collaboration with other partner firms. Ancora is the 75th “partner firm” connected to Focus and has retained its name, management and autonomy. In 2022, Ancora purchased Alpha Property and Casualty, a licensed insurance agency in Westlake Ohio.

Ancora Alternatives

James Chadwick joined the company in 2014 when it began building in the activist genre. Chadwick, now President of Ancora Alternatives, LLC, was formerly at Relational Investors LLC, a fund owned and managed by pioneering activist Ralph Whitworth.

Activist activities

Norfolk Southern

In 2024, Ancora led a group that invested approximately $1 billion (US) in the Norfolk Southern railway. Ancora precipitated a proxy fight for seats on the NS board and called for the ouster of NS CEO, Alan Shaw. The nominated new directors included former Ohio governor John Kasich and past Kansas City Southern railroad executive Sameh Fahmy. Ancora’s takeover campaign referred to the 2023 railroad derailment accident in East Palestine, Ohio (where NS financial liability approaches $1 billion [US]) but was more focused on revising NS’ business strategy to bolster increased profitability and reach fiscal targets. Shareholder advisors Glass Lewis backed Ancora; Institutional Shareholder Services, a similar firm, partially supported NS’ current management. Results of shareholder voting in May 2024 put three of Ancora’s nominees on the 13-director NS board. CEO Shaw kept his position. Ancora management vowed to hold Shaw accountable and keep pressuring him for improved profitability. In September 2024, the board of directors hired a law firm to investigate Shaw’s “ethical lapses”. Subsequently, Shaw was terminated and replaced by CFO Mark R. George.

RB Global

In November 2022, Toronto-based Ritchie Brothers Auctioneers (now RB Global) announced a $7.3 billion (US) cash and stock buyout deal for US-based IAA Inc. As an investor in IAA, Ancora opposed the pact as not in the IAA shareholders’ best interests, questioning the sale process and the lack of a “go-shop period” when the IAA board could seek a more favorable offer. Ancora, which had advocated the removal of IAA’s CEO John Kett, wanted better terms for IAA’s stockholders. Reacting to Ancora, in early 2023, Ritchie Brothers restructured the agreement by providing more cash to IAA investors and reducing share dilution for Ritchie Brothers shareholders. Ancora supported the merger, opposing hedge fund Luxor Capital Group who said the deal would sidetrack Ritchie Brothers from its core business. Ancora said Luxor was misinformed and its interests were misaligned. Another activist firm, Starboard Value LP invested $500 million in Ritchie Brothers; both Starboard and Ancora will have seats on the RB board. Under the new deal, IAA stockholders received $12.80 per share plus .5252 Ritchie Brothers share for each IAA share. On March 14, 2023, RB shareholders approved the IAA merger.