Breakout: Shareholder Activism

Shareholder activism is not going away – but it is evolving.  This session reviews the state of the art in aggressive shareholder activist techniques and in effective corporate response.  A large percentage of boards that learn that an activist has accumulated a toehold position negotiate to place at least one activist director on the board.  But opinions on this approach are diverging, and large institutional investors are taking a wide variety of views. This panel will discuss how and when a board should fight back, how a board can assess its vulnerability to an activist campaign, and which steps it can take to help deter activist interest.  Other topics include how boards might respond to campaigns simply seeking increased dividends and share repurchases versus campaigns that call for more fundamental shifts in strategy (such as sales, divestitures, or other forms of restructuring). In the process, the panel will discuss if activism promotes “short-termism” in the boardroom and, if so, what can be done to address that problem.