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”...

Notwithstanding the focus on hedge fund activism, fundamental questions remain. How much does hedge fund activism really matter? What has academic study contributed to the understanding of hedge fund activism? And what, if anything, does research on hedge fund activism illuminate about the...

This paper utilizes a rich literature on institutional investors' governance roles and develops simple measures of institutional discontent expressed through holding, trading and voice channels to predict hedge fund activism target selection. Discontent expressed through all three channels leads...

Blockholder disclosure thresholds shape incentives for hedge fund activism, which are jointly determined with real investment and managerial behavior. Uninformed investors value lower thresholds (greater transparency) when the cost of trading against an informed activist outweighs the benefits...

Hedge fund activism generates persistent performance, but heterogeneity in performance suggests that some hedge fund activists are more skilled than others. We use a Markov Chain Monte Carlo Bayesian estimation algorithm to isolate a time-invariant activist-specific skill component from...

Using a large set of hedge fund 13D filing and news data for the period of 2000 to 2019, we document that firms with more negative media sentiment are more likely to be targeted by hedge funds. The media sentiment of target firms reverts to normal level after the 13D filing dates. Our analysis...

This paper examines the governance role of hedge fund activists by analyzing the impact of these activists on CEO turnover, CEO pay, and CEO pay-performance link in targeted companies. Using the difference-in-difference approach, we first find significantly higher CEO turnover following hedge...

Hedge fund activism removes the diversification discount in targeted conglomerate firms. Targeted conglomerates increase investment in segments with better growth opportunities, while reducing each division's over-reliance on their own cash flow relative to their reliance on cash flows from...

This paper examines empirically the announcement effect of commercial corporate governance ratings on share returns. Rating downgrades by Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) are associated with negative returns of –1.14% over a 3-day announcement window. The returns are highly correlated...

It is often assumed that entrepreneurs retain more control of their venture when they opt for equity crowdfunding as compared to venture capital, notably because crowd investors are passive. We study whether crowd investors are indeed passive by analysing the cash flow and control rights crowd...