[…] If you ever needed a reminder about how M&A can be value destructive, look no further than Just Eat Takeaway’s $7.3bn acquisition of US rival Grubhub. The Netherlands-based company on Wednesday said it had to write down by €3bn the value of Grubhub, effectively admitting its consolidation strategy has failed. There are two lessons […]

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” […]

A recent court case meant to clarify the definition of a corporation intensifies questions about the tax treatment of carried interest, a prized perk for private equity and hedge fund managers. The IRS argued for a broad definition of the term “corporation” in the case. But the legal issue that could come up in the […]

In September 2019, CEOs of large U.S. corporations have embraced with suspect enthusiasm the notion that a corporation’s purpose is broader than merely “creating shareholder value”. Why now after 30 years of obedience to the dogma of shareholder primacy and servile (but highly paid) attendance to the whims and wants of investment funds? Simply put, […]

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.  

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 […]

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 […]

Yvan Allaire has a great analysis of Dow Jones’ overreaction to Snapchat’s IPO and the dual class stock phenomenon in general: ”In July 2017, Dow Jones, goaded by the reaction to Snapchat having gone public with a class of shares without voting rights, announced that, after extensive consultation, it had decided to henceforth eliminate companies […]

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, […]

In an unexpected turn of events, the Canadian Pacific Railway announced the early retirement of its CEO Hunter Harrison a few minutes before the conference call planned for the analysts on January 18. Harrison thus forfeited all benefits and perquisites he was entitled to receive from CP, including his pension, and has agreed to surrender […]

[ … ] 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 […]

Pershing Square Capital Management, 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 […]