Founder Jeff Ubben steps down as CEO; will remain as chairman.

Jeff Ubben founded activist hedge fund ValueAct in 2000. He brought a friendlier face to shareholder activism, an approach later adopted by many of his rivals. His campaigns included Microsoft, KKR and Citigroup. His position as CEO will now be filled by ValueAct’s president, Mason Morfit, according to Institutional Investor.

However, Ubben is handing over the reins when ValueAct is on a high – the firm’s Capital Master Fund returned 32% net of fees in 2019. Further, he would continue to run ValueAct’s Spring Fund, a much smaller fund focused on responsible investing that started in 2018. The fund earned 30% net of fees for the year and currently has assets of $1 billion.

Brandon Boze, a member of ValueAct’s management committee, will take over as president from Morfit. Boze has been at the hedge fund for the past 15 years.

ValueAct Changes address transformation in the fund’s business

In an email to Institutional Investor, Morfit said ValueAct had “grown into a multi-generational, multi-product, global firm.” He also said the organization restructuring “provides the infrastructure that will continue this momentum into the next 20 years and beyond.”

The fund has made investments with Olympus in Japan and Merlin Entertainment in the UK.

In other changes at the hedge fund, investment partner Greg Spivy will retire. Allison Bennington, the firm’s chief global affairs officer, is also departing to relocate to London for personal reasons. The firm promoted three other employees. Alex Baum made partner, Eva Zlotnicka becomes managing director of the Spring Fund and head of stewardship, and Drew Stroud will be managing director of marketing and head of communications.

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