The activist investor’s offer, reported by insiders, would mark another dramatic turn for the troubled asset manager as client outflows drag on.
Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is working with global investment firm General Catalyst on an offer to buy the rest of asset manager Janus Henderson Group Plc that it doesn’t already own, according to people familiar with the matter.
The firms may make public a roughly $46 per share offer valuing Janus Henderson at about $7 billion as early as Monday, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. Nothing is finalized and their plans could still change.
The move would be the latest dramatic turn in Trian’s five-year investment in Janus Henderson, which saw the activist investor oust previous management while pushing the fund manager to stop bleeding clients following the troubled merger that created the firm in 2017.
Trian first invested in Janus Henderson in 2020 when the stock was trading at half of where it is now, at around $21.60, the people said. The stock dipped to just below $30 per share in April, when the Trump administration’s aggressive tariff policies upended markets. Shares have since rebounded along with the broader market, with the S&P 500 Index recently reaching an all-time high.
Trian and General Catalyst are looking to transform Janus Henderson by having it embrace artificial intelligence, the people said.
A representative for Janus Henderson declined to comment. Representatives for General Catalyst and Trian didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Janus Henderson has been grappling with big outflows of client money, after the merger of Henderson Group and Janus Capital that created the firm failed to deliver results while investors shifted into cheaper passive products.
Its troubles drew the interest of Trian, an activist investor that is now its largest shareholder, with a 20% stake and two representatives on its board.
Peltz helped oust former Janus Henderson Chief Executive Officer Dick Weil, who left in 2022, and help install current CEO Ali Dibadj, Bloomberg News reported.
Janus Henderson, like many asset managers, has been expanding its roster of actively managed exchange-traded funds, given the difficulty of competing with the passive funds created by entrenched players such as Vanguard Group and BlackRock Inc.
General Catalyst, led by Chief Executive Officer Hemant Taneja, has backed startups such as Stripe, Airbnb Inc., Snap Inc., Warby Parker Inc. and Instacart and has been a longtime investor in the theme of artificial intelligence.
