Activist offers to work with Brink's

After launching a proxy contest to put candidates on the board of Brink's Co. last month, an activist hedge fund on Wednesday indicated it would be happy to work with a consulting firm hired by the armored-car transport company’s board to examine strategic options such as a sale.
Clay Lifflander, portfolio manager at MMI Investments LP of New York, wrote in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Nov. 30 that the hedge fund is seeking to install four director candidates because he believes the armored-car company lacks industry experience on its board.
Lifflander said in a Wednesday letter to the managing partners of Monitor Group, a consulting firm hired recently by Brink's to examine strategic options, that he and others at MMI Investments would “gladly make ourselves available to discuss these issues, with the understanding, of course, that you cannot and would not be expected to discuss any material nonpublic information regarding the company.”
MMI Investments has been engaging Brink’s since 2003 and has lately pushed for a sale of the company. In 2005 the hedge fund began publicly agitating for Brink’s to sell its marginally profitable BAX Global subsidiary, an international heavy-freight and logistics operator, which was subsequently sold for roughly $1.1 billion.
MMI Investments continues to own an 8.4% Brink's stake. — Ron Orol
See TheDeal.com: Activist investor seeks changes at Brink's
Ron Orol is a Washington-based reporter for The Deal and author of Extreme Value Hedging: How Activist Hedge Fund Managers Are Taking on the World.