Agenda – ‘Fertile Soil’ for Activism Drives Rise in Proxy Fights

The deadline for dissidents to throw director candidates in the ring is looming for companies with spring annual meetings. Investors are intending to nominate opposing board candidates and have launched a flurry of proxy battles as companies work to resolve demands behind the scenes. Indeed, between Jan. 1 and Feb. 22 this year, activists announced…

Petition: Demand that State Treasurers and public pensions vote for climate justice and Indigenous rights this spring

This April and May, investors in Wall Street banks and insurance companies will vote on at least four shareholder proposals related to climate justice and Indigenous rights. A resolution calling for a time-bound phase-out of financing for companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion. A resolution demanding that big banks report on how they respect internationally-recognized…

Goldman Activism Head Says Companies Face ‘Swarm’ of Agitators

Activist investing is at an all-time high and large companies are particularly vulnerable to packs of agitators that may not even have the same agenda, according to one of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s top dealmakers. “We used to refer to this as a wolfpack — wolfpack implies some kind of coordination,” said Avinash Mehrotra, global head…

Shareholder Activism Increase — On Both Sides

Shareholder activism is on the rise, according to a new analysis released this morning by The Conference Board (and shared in advance with CEO Daily.) The volume of shareholder proposals is expected to increase in 2023, in part because new rules from the SEC narrow the grounds for excluding such proposals, and also because more…

Activist investor campaigns rise back up to pre-Covid levels

Campaigns by shareholder activists look set to rise further this year after a return to pre-pandemic levels in 2022. The conclusions come from experts following research by Lazard revealing activist action was at its highest for the past four years. Lazard documented 235 campaigns last year at companies with market caps of more than $500m,…

Activist investor Bluebell targets BlackRock for inadequate ESG — Reuters

Tiny activist investor Bluebell Capital Partners is taking aim at BlackRock (BLK.N) and wants to replace longtime CEO Larry Fink, criticizing the world’s largest asset manager as being inconsistent in its focus on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues. Bluebell, with roughly $250 million in assets, said BlackRock, which invests over $8 trillion, and…

FTI Consulting: Still Spinning

We are not surprised to see FTI Consulting is still reliably unreliable. This is the firm that famously created fake dark money-funded front groups, fake news sites, and fake social media profiles and has not answered our inquiries about their reported changes. Managing Director Kurt Moeller writes a piece titled “5 Factors Impacting Activists’ Declining…