Les fonds d’investissement dits « activistes » sont l’objet d’une grande attention de la part des médias. Les protagonistes les plus en vue sont traités comme des stars : leurs photos se retrouvent en couverture des plus prestigieux magazines américains, et on sollicite leurs avis sur tous les enjeux économiques. Nouveaux rois de la finance pour certains, sombres […]

« Yvan Allaire and François Dauphin return to a topic on which they have been active and important commentators and analysts; namely, hedge fund activism. Specifically, they report on a new study they conducted: « We … explored, among other things, the consequences of activism over time when compared to a random sample of firms with […]

« Over the last few years, hedge fund activism has received a great deal of coverage in financial media (and in the mainstream press), has triggered heated debates and been the focus of much academic research. Saviour of capitalism for some, for others, activist hedge funds are but mongers of short-term tactics which eventually damage business […]

« Activist hedge funds can count on a number of supporters in academia and in the media rising up in defense of their actions. No doubt activist hedge funds have found their most persistent academic supporters in Professor Lucian Bebchuk of the Harvard Law School and his co-authors. In several papers, but most particularly in […]

Les fonds de couverture activistes ne sont pas les sauveurs des entreprises, ni à court ni à long terme, réitère Yvan Allaire. Yvan Allaire et François Dauphin affirment avoir exploré les effets de l’activisme au fil du temps, en les comparant à l’évolution d’un échantillon aléatoire de sociétés ouvertes qui avaient des caractéristiques semblables au […]

Au cours des dernières années, les médias financiers (tout comme la presse grand public) ont souvent abordé l’activisme des fonds de couverture, sujet qui a donné lieu à des débats houleux et a fait l’objet de bon nombre de travaux de recherche universitaire. S’ils sont les sauveurs du capitalisme pour certains, pour d’autres, les fonds […]

« The decades-long conflict that is currently raging over short-termism and activist hedge funds strikes me as analogous to the Thirty Years’ War of the 17th Century, albeit fought with statistics (“empirical evidence”), op-eds and journal articles rather than cannon, pike and sword. I decided, after some thirty-six years in the front line of the […]

« The decades-long conflict that is currently raging over short-termism and activist hedge funds strikes me as analogous to the Thirty Years’ War of the 17th Century, albeit fought with statistics (“empirical evidence”), op-eds and journal articles rather than cannon, pike and sword. I decided, after some thirty-six years in the front line of the […]

« This paper aims to describe the contemporary tactics and objectives of activist Hedge Funds as well as the actions taken by targeted companies as a result of their intervention. While doing so, we explored the consequences of activism over time when compared to a random sample of firms with similar characteristics at the time of […]

Dans un document intéressant et pertinent sur l’activisme des fonds de couverture (Hedge Funds), le commissaire Daniel M. Gallagher de la U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, cite les travaux de l’IGOPP et du professeur Yvan Allaire, président exécutif du conseil, portant sur le même sujet. L’IGOPP a publié une série de rapports de recherche sur l’activisme […]

« Today, I’d like to pull together some themes that I have been thinking, speaking, and writing about during my tenure and address them more holistically. Specifically, I’d like to share with you some thoughts about shareholder activism, short-termism, and the SEC. I. What is activism? Like many others, I view activism broadly: it is simply […]

« At 8:38 a.m. on June 11, the activist investment firm Elliott Management—run by billionaire Paul Singer—disclosed that it controlled a 7.1% interest in software vendor Citrix Systems, and wanted to meet with management to discuss its proposal to overhaul the company. More than seven hours passed before Fort Lauderdale-based Citrix CTXS, +0.86% produced a […]

« Among practitioners, it is a customary cliché to say that all proxy contests—just like all trials—are unique and idiosyncratic. There is some truth to that easy generalization, but it also misses the forest for the trees. Some obvious truths stand out in the recent battle between Trian Fund Management and DuPont that will apply to […]

« U.S. businesses, feeling heat from activist investors, are slashing long-term spending and returning billions of dollars to shareholders, a fundamental shift in the way they are deploying capital. Data show a broad array of companies have been plowing more cash into dividends and stock buybacks, while spending less on investments such as new factories and […]

« U.S. businesses, feeling heat from activist investors, are slashing long-term spending and returning billions of dollars to shareholders, a fundamental shift in the way they are deploying capital. Data show a broad array of companies have been plowing more cash into dividends and stock buybacks, while spending less on investments such as new factories and […]

« Martin Lipton is a founding partner of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and this post is based on a Wachtell Lipton memorandum. The post puts forward criticism of an empirical study by Lucian Bebchuk, Alon Brav, and Wei Jiang on the long-term effects of hedge fund activism; this study is available here, and its results […]