Topic: How To Invest

Spinoffs & Takeovers Hotline – Friday, January 3, 2020

Article Excerpt

MEDIFAST INC., $110.67, symbol MED on New York, is engaged in the production, distribution, and sale of weight loss and related weight management products. Through Medifast Direct (direct-to-consumer unit), customers order products online or through call centres. OPTAVIA, the personal coaching division, consists of a network of health coaches (independent contractors) trained to provide support to clients. In November 2019, activist investment firm Engaged Capital announced that it had acquired a 15% stake in the Baltimore-based company for $107.5 million. Engaged, which was founded in 2012 by Glenn Welling, manages more than $1 billion from Newport Beach, California. It has struck settlements for board seats in about half of its activist campaigns and often presses companies to sell part or all of themselves. For instance, in early 2019, private-equity firm L Catterton purchased Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group Inc. following pressure from Engaged. In 2018, Jamba Inc. was sold; Engaged had urged the smoothie maker to shed some locations several years earlier. Engaged also…