October 20, 2018 Activism Insight: An Interview With Bruce Goldfarb, CEO of Okapi Partners

An interview with Bruce Goldfarb, president and CEO of Okapi Partners from the 2018 Shareholder Activism Insight.

Read the full interview here.

AI: Activists do not seem to believe that the U.S. is overcrowded with activists. Can activism continue to grow?

BG: “There’s no question that activist investment strategies, which represent a tiny fraction of the overall investment and asset management universe, have room to grow. Fundamentally, activists are value investors and look for underperforming companies that can be improved.

In fact, a number of traditional investment management firms are becoming more activist-like by publicly demanding changes in management and boards of companies in which they have positions. It remains to be seen whether such firms will seek to replace directors through proxy contests and we wouldn’t be surprised if more traditional investment managers consider using the proxy voting system to force change at their investments.

For now, capital continues to be raised for activist strategies and more allocators of capital are becoming comfortable with it as an asset class. If you take the 20,000 foot view, we think shareholder activism is really in its early stages.”