EFTA02556617.pdf

From: David Stern Sent: Friday, June 1, 2012 9:29 AM To: Jeffrey Epstein Subject: Tim Collins Kleinwort parent pressured to spin off assets The parent company of Kleinwort Benson, one of the oldest names in =ritish banking, is facing pressure from activist shareholders to break =tself up and spin off all its assets. Kleinwort, the private banking and wealth management group with roots =tretching back to 1786, was acquired in October 2009 by RHJ =nternational, a Brussels-listed private equity fund, from Commerzbank, =he German lender. Disgruntled shareholders holding more than 3 per cent of RHJ have =ritten to the company's directors to demand an extraordinary dividend =hat would in effect abort its plan to create a larger banking franchise =round Kleinwort. Separately, Equilibria Capital Management, a Bermuda-based hedge fund =oordinating the shareholder revolt, demanded the board consider a =reak-up of RHJ and a spin off of Kleinwort Benson, its biggest asset. "The best way forward for shareholders is through a break-up of RHJ, =nd it begins with the payment of an extraordinary dividend," said =aniel Tafur, chief investment officer at Equilibria, which itself =ontrols about 1.5 per cent of the shares. The minority bloc say there is more value in the sum of RHJ's parts than in its €343m market capitalisation — much of which comes €266m =n cash on its balance sheet. They are demanding a special dividend of €2.40 per share, which would =rain about €200m of RHJ's cash reserves. Their view was backed by analysts at ABN Amro, which wrote in a research =ote "we see more upside in a case of a break-up," but said it was =nclear if the activist shareholders would get the required votes at the =une 19 annual general meeting. The immediate impact of an imposed change in strategy would be to pull =he plug on RHJ's planned acquisition of BHF, a private banking arm of =eutsche Bank which it has been in negotiations to buy for coming up to = year. Beyond Kleinwort, RHJ owns a handful of minority stakes in industrial =nd financial company stakes, concentrated in Europe and Japan. The company's second-biggest shareholder, Tim Collins, made his name a =ecade ago scooping up Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan alongside US =inancier Christopher Flowers. RHJ is a 2005 spin-off from the Ripplewood Holdings private equity fund =e founded in 1995, which itself has run into trouble following a string =f investments at the top of the credit bubble. Touted by Mr Collins as a European version of Warren Buffett's =erkshire Hathaway, the US investment firm, it tried and failed to buy =ut General Motors' Opel subsidiary in 2009 before bidding for =leinwort. A top five RHJ shareholder supportive of management said the activists' =equests were not in the best interests of the company. "There is an =pportunity to invest in financial assets in Europe, which RHJ is well =ositioned to do," the shareholder said. RHJ declined to comment. <?xml version=.0" encoding=TF-8"?> <IDOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "I/Apple/MID PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version=.0"> EFTA_R1_01715286 EFTA02556617 <dict> <key>conversation-id</key> <integer>222292</integer> <key>date-last-yiewed</key> <integer>0</integer> <key>date-received</key> <integer>1338542912</integer> <key>flags</key> <Integer>85901957B</integer> <key>gmail-label-ids</key> <array> <integer>6</integer> <integer>2</integer> </array> <key>remote-id</key> <string>226613</string> </diet> </plist> 2 EFTA_R1_01715287 EFTA02556618