Activism

Unexpected Corporate Outcomes from Hedge Fund Activism in Japan

Hedge fund activism has been identified in the USA as a driver of enduring corporate governance change and market perception. We investigate this claim...

Pandemic-Resistant Corporate Law: How to Help Companies Cope with Existential Threats and Extreme Uncertainty During the Covid-19 Crisis

This essay argues that, to address the Covid-19 crisis, in addition to creating a special temporary insolvency regime, relaxing provisions for...

Returns to Shareholder Activism: Evidence from a Clinical Study of the Hermes U.K. Focus Fund

This article reports a unique analysis of private engagements by an activist fund. It is based on data made available to us by Hermes, the fund manager...

The Agency Costs of Agency Capitalism: Activist Investors and the Revaluation of Governance Rights

Answering the Say for No Pay

Say on pay is considered an important tool to mitigate inappropriate remuneration practices. Over the years, many countries provided shareholders...

Shareholder Engagement on Environmental, Social, and Governance Performance

We study behind-the-scenes investor activism promoting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) improvements by means of a proprietary dataset...

The Effect of Institutional Investors' Voice on the Terms and Outcome of Freeze-out Tender Offers

We study the impact of institutional investors' “voice” on 201 going private tender offers by controlling shareholders ("freeze-out" offers) in...

Dancing with Activists

An important milestone often reached in the life of an activist engagement is entering into a “settlement” agreement between the activist and the...

Shareholder Value(s): Index Fund ESG Activism and the New Millennial Corporate Governance

Major index fund operators have been criticized as ineffective stewards of the firms in which they are now the largest shareholders. While scholars...

The Global ESG Stewardship Ecosystem

There is growing interest in the phenomenon of international or transnational corporate law. This development is marked by its complexity. It involves...

Shareholder Activism through Proxy Proposals: The European Perspective

Agency Theory in Practice: A Qualitative Study of Hedge Fund Activism in Japan

We look at the reaction to hedge fund activism of managers and shareholders in Japanese firms and explore the implications of our findings for agency...