Activist investor Anson Funds has built a stake in Twilio (NYSE:TWLO) and sent a letter to the enterprise software company’s board pushing for the sale of the entire business.
Twilio shares rose as much as 2% on the news in Tuesday morning trading, but later gave back most of those gains.
Anson did not hold any Twilio stock for the period ending Sept. 30, according to securities filings, but has since built a stake valued at around $50 million, the person familiar said. The letter to the board urges Twilio to either sell itself or at a minimum, divest its data and applications business, the person familiar said.
The growth of the stake coincided with Anson’s hiring of Sagar Gupta from Legion Partners. Gupta led Legion’s activist engagements with Twilio and Nutanix, a cloud computing firm.
“Twilio regularly engages with shareholders and appreciates constructive input that furthers our goal of creating sustainable long-term value,” a Twilio spokesperson told the media.
The continued activist attention caps off a challenging year for Twilio, which makes software that helps businesses engage with their customers. The company’s stock is up around 28% year-to-date but remains well off its 2021 highs. In February, the company cut around 1,500 employees, or 17% of its workforce citing a need for heightened efficiency. Those layoffs followed a similar headcount reduction in September 2022.
TWLO shares neared noon EST on Tuesday in the green $2.30, or 3.7%, to $65.15.
