Why? Because over the past two weeks, the influential proxy advisers RiskMetrics Group Inc, (formerly, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc.) and Glass, Lewis & Co. LLC have both recommended that investors vote against all five directors up for election, including founder Sy Syms and his daughter Marcy Syms, who is the retailer's CEO. Syms annual meeting is scheduled for next month.
With the backing of Glass Lewis and RiskMetric, a large chunk of investors will likely support the efforts of a number of activists. Esopus Creek Advisors, which has a 4% stake, sent a letter earlier this month to Syms lashing out at the company's management for failing to disclose detailed information about its rental property profits.
Another investor, Barington Capital Group, which has a 6% stake, is pressing Syms into changing its business practices and begin accounting for hidden real estate. (The activists believe the company is not adequately accounting for much of its non-Syms retail outlet real estate and that this lack of disclosure is keeping the price of its stock artificially low).
Yet another investor, Tommy Kahn of the Kahn Brothers also penned a letter in February outlining his own grievances with the company's real estate disclosures. Kahn, whose father Irving Kahn served as a teaching aid to "father of value investing" Benjamin Graham, wants Syms to hire an outside consultant to do a study on the company's real estate revenue and retail business.
With the efforts of Barington, Esopus and the Kahn brothers, change might be on the way at Syms. - Ron Orol
Ron Orol is a Washington-based reporter for The Deal and author of Extreme Value Hedging: How Activist Hedge Fund Managers Are Taking on the World.
Expect a wide variety of institutional and hedge fund investors to back an activist investor campaign at New York discount retailer Syms Corp. 
