ADSK - AutoCAD-Maker Autodesk Receives $500M Investment From Starboard Value Activist Investor Demands Changes: Report (UPDATED) | Benzinga
Editor's Note: The story has been updated with a response from Autodesk spokesperson on the report.
Activist investor Starboard Value has reportedly acquired a significant stake in Autodesk Inc (NASDAQ:ADSK) and is advocating for changes within the company. Autodesk’s architecture, engineering, and construction solutions include AutoCAD and Revit, their flagship product for relational building information modeling.
What Happened: Starboard Value has invested approximately $500 million in Autodesk, a design-software company. The investment firm has expressed concerns about the company’s operational strategies, corporate governance, and handling a recent accounting investigation that led to a drop in the stock price, reported to The Wall Street Journal on Sunday citing people familiar with the matter.
Starboard is urging Autodesk to enhance its profit margins and make modifications to its board. The activist investor has already met with the company’s executives to discuss these issues.
The San Francisco-based Autodesk, with a market capitalization of nearly $50 billion, has seen its shares decrease by 7% this year. The company, which provides engineering, 3D-design, and entertainment software and services, faced a significant stock drop following the revelation of an accounting probe and a ...