Shake Shack Agrees to Add Dissident-Sponsored Board Members

Shake Shack Inc. has entered a cooperation agreement with Engaged Capital, LLC to appoint Jeffrey D. Lawrence to its Board as an independent director, effective immediately. The Company will also work with Engaged Capital to identify an additional mutually agreed upon independent director to appoint to the Shake Shack Board with restaurant operations experience. The…

SOC Investment Targets JP Morgan Chase Director over Inadequate DEI

The audit committee chairman at the nation’s largest bank is facing scrutiny over his allegedly poor oversight of a racial equity audit. In an April 18 letter to JPMorgan Chase & Co. shareholders, SOC Investment Group urged investors to oppose the reelection of Timothy P. Flynn, a director at the bank and chair of its…

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…

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…

Why Finance Firms Should Pay Attention to Activist Investing

Activist investing was never really an activity for ‘the people’ historically. Perhaps because ‘the people’ hadn’t yet considered how being a shareholder could be used as a form of activism. Now, we find ourselves amid a retail investor boom, and it shows no signs of slowing down. They even have a name tag for this…

Do Hedge Funds Create Value? 3 Lessons From Danone And Unilever

Hedge funds do not have to disclose to the SEC any intentions to exert control of a company if they own less than 5% of a company. These small stakes can still have huge impact, as we have seen at corporate giants like Exxon and Nestle. Even small hedge funds can have significant influence if…

Shareholder Commons: First Annual Report

“TSC is a new NGO that is catalysing a paradigm shift in responsible investment.” … In their first year of activity, they have begun to build a field of asset owners, asset managers, advisors, and civil society organisations who want a new toolkit to ensure that profits are aligned with social cohesion and environmental preservation. They…

Activist Stewardship

Highlights from a new article on hedge fund activism on behalf of long-term shareholder value, from Robert Eccles (Oxford University), Aeisha Mastagni (CalSTRS), and Kirsty Jenkinson (CalSTRS): The time has come for “activist stewardship.” Simply put, this means putting the skills and techniques of activist hedge funds to work where a company’s financial performance is…