Xerox Shareholder Pushes for Activist Changes at Company

Xerox Shareholder Pushes for Activist Changes at Company

Mengqi Sun

Tue, September 8, 2026 at 3:00 PM GMT+3 3 min read

• XRX -1.87%

(Bloomberg) -- A significant shareholder in Xerox Holdings Corp. is pushing the company to take action to unlock shareholder value and is asking for a strategic review of its financial services business.

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Starteepo, led by investor Frantisek Bostl, said it has taken a 7.34% stake in Xerox, according to the letter sent Monday to the board that was reviewed by Bloomberg News.

The Prague-based alternative investment manager also called on the company to deleverage its balance sheet and be disciplined around capital allocation, according to the letter.

Bostl wrote in the letter that Xerox's financial services unit can be worth as much as $7.69 per share, more than double the current share price for the entire company.

A representative for Xerox didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Norwalk, Connecticut-based Xerox makes printers, scanners, supplies and accessories. Its shares have fallen about 13% over the past year, giving the company a market value of about $418 million.

Xerox's shares closed at $3.32 on Friday in New York trading.

Starteepo said Xerox should provide more transparency on its financial services business, which provides financing for its products, according to the letter. The investor is pushing management to disclose the unit's financials separately in earnings and communicate its strategy for the unit no later than its third-quarter earnings, which it said can help the market recognize the unit's value.

Starteepo also wants the company to hire advisers to carry out a formal strategic review of the unit, which would ideally include looking at a joint venture, strategic capital partnership, a sale and alternative funding structures, the letter said.

Starteepo disclosed in May that it has taken a significant stake in Xerox, saying at the time that the company "represents an interesting investment opportunity." Starteepo continued to increase its stake in Xerox in July.

"By every measure, the business has improved in the past four months," Bostl wrote in the letter. "Despite all this progress, however, Xerox's enterprise value, which has consistently failed to capture the company's potential, is even lower today than when we first made our position public."

The investor said the unit should consider a so-called optimized capital structure, in which a third party would provide portfolio funding while Xerox maintains its servicing and customer relationships. Starteepo said its industry peers such as HP and General Electric have similar capital finance structures.

Starteepo said with these steps, Xerox can reach $3.3 billion in equity, or more than $18 a share.

"Ultimately, we see a deleveraged and re-rated Xerox as better able to participate in industry consolidation and command a premium valuation," Bostl wrote.

Starteepo was founded in 2017. It has previously invested in stocks such as media company Warner Bros. Discovery and data storage company Western Digital Corp.

Xerox previously also faced pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn, who in 2015 pushed the company to explore strategic alternatives and improve operations while seeking board representation. Xerox later announced a split into two public companies, separating its service and hardware businesses. It also granted Icahn three board seats.

Icahn sold his remaining stake back to Xerox for $542 million in 2023.

In June, hedge fund Converium Capital Inc. said it sees value in Xerox's bonds. Aaron Stern, Converium's managing partner and chief investment officer said in a presentation at the time that its bonds are currently mispriced because of the company's "messy" capital structure and "Frankenstein balance sheet."

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