Relational Investors LLC

Relational Investors LLC is an investment management firm based out of San Diego, California. The company was originally established in 1996 by Ralph V. Whitworth and David Harry Batchelder, both of whom are still with the company acting as its principals. Relational Investors has grown from its inception to now operate with 12 employees of which half are investment professionals. The company conducts its research internally, utilizing a “combination of capital and experience to influence the direction of its portfolio companies” and striving to “create long-term growth in publicly traded, underperforming companies that it believes are undervalued in the marketplace.” Relational Investors invests mainly in the consumer discretionary sector, which alone makes up over half of the firm’s total asset allocations, and also invests in the health care sector, which makes up another third of its total asset allocations, among other sectors to a lesser degree. The company manages over $2.8 billion in total assets under management spread across 15 total accounts, all of which are discretionary accounts. Both of Relational Investor’s total number of accounts and total assets under management have been decreasing in recent years, although the firm’s total assets under management did have an albeit volatile upwards trend for a while before its current decline. The company mainly caters to other client types, which alone makes up almost two thirds of its client base in terms of accounts and over half of its total attributed assets. The firm also provides services to state or municipal entities and pooled investment vehicles to a lesser degree. As of 2016, Relational Investors has closed out all of its portfolios, fully ending the firm that once had over $6 billion in total assets under management at its highest point. The company has been winding down its operations since 2014. Ralph V. Whitworth, the company founder, has been taking an indefinite leave which coincided with the news that his throat cancer had relapsed.