Activist investor Starboard Value has been engaging with the board of Autodesk (NASDAQ:ADSK), continuing its push to improve the company’s operations and financial performance.
Starboard wants Autodesk’s board to reassess whether CEO Andrew Anagnost, who has helmed the software maker for seven years, is the right person to lead the company forward, according to the presentation.
The activist investor has shared the presentation’s findings with Autodesk’s board in recent weeks, after disclosing a $500 million stake in the company earlier this year.
Starboard is also pushing for cost cuts and a realigned executive compensation plan, all of which it believes can drive margin improvement of up to 1,000 basis points. A basis point is equal to one-hundredth of a percentage point.
That margin improvement would in turn drive better operating leverage, according to Starboard’s presentation. The activist also believes Autodesk can deploy its free-cash flow for share buybacks.
The activist has also honed in on Autodesk’s poor track record with investor communications, noting in its presentation that the company had missed or was on track to miss every investor day commitment it had made since 2018. Those misses have all been under Anagnost’s leadership.
Autodesk has underperformed its benchmark indexes in every annual time frame since Anagnost took over, according to Starboard’s analyses. Autodesk shares have returned 113% over a seven-year window, which the Dow Jones’ US Software benchmark has soared 362%.
ADSK shares leaped $8.91, or 4%, to $234.63.
