Activist Investor Cevian Digs in on Demands for ABB Breakup

  • Cevian’s Gardell reiterates call for power grid spinoff
  • ABB unveiled planned sale of niche cables business to NKT
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ABB Ltd.’s planned sale of a niche cables business to a Danish supplier failed to appease Swedish activist shareholder Cevian Capital AB, which is pushing for an outright breakup of the Swiss engineering company.

ABB plans to sell its high-voltage cable operation to NKT Cables of Denmark for an enterprise value of $934 million, the Zurich-based company said Wednesday in a statement. The business generates about 5 percent of the revenue of the power-grid business that Cevian wants ABB to hive off into a separate company.