“You’re talking about the end stage of an election campaign, where the parties haven’t kissed and made up,” said Bruce Goldfarb, founder and chief executive of Okapi Partners, a proxy-solicitation firm. “There’s a little bit of venom to the process.”
Beleaguered Hedge Fund Titan Bill Ackman Is Having Another Rough Year It certainly looks like 2017 is shaping up to be another “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” year. By Ron Orol Bill Ackman earlier this month escalated his activist campaign to install three dissident directors onto Automatic Data Processing Inc.’s (ADP) board with a 167-page presentation […]
By Bruce Goldfarb July 27, 2017 When a hedge fund launches a major activist campaign calling for changes at companies here and in overseas markets it’s real news. But under the radar of those headline-grabbing battles, big institutional investors like mutual funds, index funds, pensions and endowments are also getting into the activist […]
Calling ‘Mom and Pop’ in a Proxy Fight Article published on June 12, 2017 By Lindsay Frost A heated battle at Arconic last month ended in a successful settlement for activist investment firm Elliott Management, partially due to its unique approach to winning over retail voters, who make up about 30% of outstanding stock: sending them individual video […]
By Bruce H. Goldfarb The giant shift in assets from active to passive investment strategies over the last few years has profoundly changed the balance of shareholder power in corporate America. Index funds managed by investment giants such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are now more influential than ever. These investors not only own […]
Bruce Goldfarb, president and CEO, Okapi Partners: “Large mutual fund and index fund managers, like BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, are becoming more vocal about governance issues and long-term value creation. You can expect these shareholders as well as activist investors to hold boards accountable for compensation plans that incentivize short-term thinking over long-term sustainability […]
January 5, 2017 | By Garnet Roach, IR Magazine The coming year is set to see more vocal index funds and an activist focus on small and mid-caps With 48 campaigns during 2016 – on both the activist side and the defense – proxy solicitor Okapi Partners topped Activist Insight’s second annual ranking of law and proxy firms […]
By Ron Orol, TheStreet.com In October, the large and influential money manager State Street Global Advisors issued a warning to companies and activists for 2017: Consider very carefully the interests of long-term investors when entering settlements with insurgent funds. Specifically, State Street said it was concerned that “a recent rise in settlements … entered into rapidly […]
Activist investors are bracing for an uncertain environment under a Donald Trump presidency. Bruce Goldfarb, CEO of Okapi Partners, said the demise of carried interest, something Trump said he supports, would impact the profitability of activist funds. “It’s something everybody has to think about,” he said, adding that investors are also concerned about the overall deal […]