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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 with an identity as a “boutique” family wealth and investment management firm. 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. For example, 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.

Berry Global

In 2021, Ancora brought pressure on Berry Global of Evansville, IN in a letter sent to the company’s board of directors. Berry manufactures plastics used in the production of food service containers, bottles and diapers. Ancora’s letter suggested Berry should consider strategies to increase its market value like share buy-backs plus leasebacks of corporate-owned real estate. Ancora controlled about 1% of Berry shares at the time. Ancora’s letter stated the value of Berry’s stock might be as much as $100/share if certain strategies were employed and said it might request a change in the board. In 2022, Berry announced that it had reached an agreement with Ancora and investor Eminence Capital. Terming the arrangement a “mutual cooperation agreement,” Berry agreed to add three new independent board members plus a capital allocation committee to review overall strategy in increasing market value.

C.H. Robinson

In 2022, Ancora began negotiating with C.H. Robinson, the Minnesota-based largest freight broker in the US (revenues in 2022 of $24.7 billion (US)) saying the company should have a clearer focus on Robinson’s core domestic business and challenges from newer digitally-oriented participants in the freight industry. Ancora, who had two representatives on the Robinson board at the time. also wanted the company to sell its international freight forwarding business. Robinson was struggling with a downturn in the freight business and had laid off 650 employees in an attempt to cut $150 million (US) in expenses. In June 2023, the company appointed 30-year logistics and Ford Motor veteran Dave Bozeman CEO. He also serves on the company’s board. In the summer of 2024, Robinson announced it had sold its European Surface Transportation with 6,500 shippers and 15,000 carriers, to German freight forwarder Sennder Technologies which will allow Robinson to focus on its core US business.

Kohl's Corporation

In February 2021 a group of activist investors, led by Ancora Alternatives, Macellum Advisors and others, published a letter to shareholders of Kohl’s, the retailer based in Menominee Falls, WI, pointing out the retailer had not performed as well as its competition, lost market share and suffered from a downturn in gross margin. The investors asked for new directors with retail backgrounds, reduced pay for Kohl’s executives, revised inventory controls and a sale and lease-back program on property owned by the corporation. Kohl’s management rejected the terms of the letter although it admitted it had been in talks with the investment group. The following April, Kohl’s, Ancora, Macellum and others reached an agreement, and three new directors were added to the Kohl’s board – Margaret Jenkins, former CMO of Denny’s, ex-Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad CEO Thomas Kingsbury and past Lululemon CEO Christine Day. Additionally, the board raised its share buy-back program to $2 billion (US). In September 2022, Ancora, acting on its own, requested that the board of directors terminate both CEO Michelle Gass and Board Chair Peter Boneparth replacing them with executives more experienced in business turnarounds. In November 2022, Gass announced she would depart Kohl’s to become president of Levi Strauss. She was replaced by Ancora’s 2021 board nominee, Tom Kingsbury, a former Burlington executive who was named interim CEO.