In a surprising move, Rogers and Altice USA made an offer to buy Cogeco and Cogeco Communications and split their assets between them. If Cogeco were a typical Canadian corporation with a one-share, one-vote capital structure, the would-be buyers could disregard any reticence or opposition by the board of directors and transmit their offer directly […]

The past six months have been marked by a profound upheaval that has accelerated the growing focus on both the purpose of the corporation and the role of the board in overseeing and leading the corporation in ways that promote sustainable business success. For a number of years, there has been a growing sense of […]

A thick hide is a necessary qualification for the job of activist short-seller. When Spruce Point Capital Management released a negative report on Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. in late 2019, it prompted Yvan Allaire, the executive chair of the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations, to fire back in the Financial Post: “What […]

Mr. Ben Axler, Chief Investment Officer and founder of Spruce Point Capital responds (Financial Post, December 17th, 2019) to my article on short sellers of his kind (Financial Post, December 13th, 2019). He trots out the worn-out argument that short sellers only reveal the sordid truths hidden in the bosom of corporations. In short, “professional” […]

When any individual investor or fund comes to the conclusion after careful analysis that a company is over-valued, it may very well sell short the shares of that company. Fair enough. If the analysis proves right, facts on the ground will confirm it eventually and the stock price will drop. But that’s not the game plan […]

By all indications mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity is on the rise. In the first five months of 2019, companies announced over $1 trillion in mergers and acquisitions, a 14% increase from the same period in 2018. This is generally good for the economy, the consumer and the shareholders alike. In fact, all Americans benefit […]

Institutional investors are howling for US public companies to focus more on the long-term.[1]  This is unsurprising. Long-term focused companies produce significantly better results over time, reporting far greater revenue growth with less volatility, far higher levels of economic profit, and greater total return to shareholders.[2] So if you are holding stock for a long time, a […]

Yvan Allaire, executive chair at the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss “quarterly capitalism” in light of WestJet CEO Ed Sims’ warning on the destruction it brings to long-term company plans. To watch this interview, please click here.  

Dual-class share structures have drawn the ire of some investors, citing concerns with shareholder rights. For more on this and why he thinks there’s a place for dual-class shares, BNN Bloomberg spoke with Yvan Allaire, executive chair at the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations. To view the interview, please click here

There are now 69 dual-class companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, down from 100 in 2005. Only 23 Canadian companies went public since 2005 with a dual-class of shares while 16 of the 100 have since converted to a single-class and another 38 have disappeared since 2006 for other reasons (acquisitions, mergers, bankruptcies and […]

Activist hedge funds have become capital market and financial media darlings. The Economist famously called them “capitalism’s unlikely heroes” in a cover story, and the FT published an article saying we “should welcome” them. But they are utterly reviled by CEOs. And at best, their performance is ambiguous. The most comprehensive study of activist hedge fund performance that I have read […]

The corporate hunting season is officially underway, an annual ritual during which shareholder parties, armed with proxies and other weapons of democratic destruction, set out to bag executives and directors for failing to deliver. The list of potential corporate failings is all encompassing. Anything and everything is a target, from executive compensation to diversity policies […]

Pershing Square, an activist hedge fund owned and managed by William Ackman, began hostile maneuvers against the board of CP Rail in September 2011 and ended its association with CP in August 2016, having netted a profit of $2.6 billion for his fund. This Canadian saga, in many ways, an archetype of what hedge fund […]

After some 15 years of tweaking and polishing the theory and practice of “good” governance, perfectly independent board members remain surprise-prone, estranged from the goings-on in the company, partially informed and lacking the wherewithal to challenge management. No doubt that the legitimacy and credibility of boards have suffered as a result. In the current age, […]

[ … ] a growing body of academic research has confirmed that short-term financial activists are a major contributor to systemic short-termism in managing businesses and investments. The notion that activist attacks increase, rather than undermine, long-term value creation has been resoundingly discredited. Economists Yvan Allaire and François Dauphin, for example, demonstrated in a series […]

Pershing Square, an activist hedge fund owned and managed by William Ackman, began hostile maneuvers against the board of CP Rail in September 2011 and ended its association with CP in August 2016, having netted a profit of $2.6 billion for his fund. This Canadian saga, in many ways, an archetype of what hedge fund […]