After months of private negotiations with Milwaukee-headquartered Fiserv, Jana is becoming more vocal, having first discussed its hopes for the company publicly in early June and now following up with the more pointed letter to the company.
Fiserv has a market value of nearly $30 billion but has lost more than half of its value in the last 12 months, with its stock price closing at $54.07 on Thursday.
The announcement last month by CEO Mike Lyons, who had been in the top job for only a year, that he was leaving to run Truist Financial TFC.N added to the stock's decline.
In the letter, Jana blamed management turnover and unspecified and ongoing missteps for making investors skittish. It singled out the board for failing to attract and keep talented top executives and said new blood was needed in the boardroom to fix these problems.
Most critical, however, was the need to publicly announce a comprehensive review, the letter said.
In July, the Wall Street Journal first reported that big banks, including JPMorgan Chase JPM.N and Bank of America BAC.N, held preliminary and tentative discussions to possibly buy Fiserv's debit network assets. No deal has been announced.
Fiserv announced smaller efforts earlier this year, including partnering with Bridgeport Partners to form a joint venture spinning off its ATM managed services, cash logistics and MoneyPass networks. It sold its Education Solutions student loan servicing business to Infinite Computer Solutions.
Jana, which has experience in pushing financial sector companies to perform better, previously said it believes Fiserv can help banks and credit unions adopt artificial intelligence tools in their own businesses, including through a recently announced collaboration with OpenAI.
Three years ago, Jana successfully pushed Fiserv competitor Fidelity National Information Services FIS.N to separate its Worldpay payments business.
The hedge fund is currently pushing for a big share buyback and breakup at holding company Markel Group MKL.N and a sale of digital banking platform Alkami Technology ALKT.O.
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