Hedge Fund Activism Canadian Style

The forthright brand of shareholder activism hedge funds deploy became during the 2000s a significant feature of Canadian corporate governance. This paper examines hedge fund activism “Canadian style.” The paper characterizes the interventions hedge funds specialize in as “offensive” shareholder activism and uses a heuristic device, “the market for corporate influence”, to identify the variables that dictate how frequent such activism is likely to be. This analytical structure is used to explain why hedge fund activism has become part of the Canadian corporate governance landscape and has displaced at least partly a Canadian shareholder “culture of passivity.”