This paper looks at shareholder activism from the perspective of the revision of the EU Shareholder Rights Directive, which was approved by the European Parliament on 14 March 2017. The main findings are as follows.First, the effective engagement of institutional investors in corporate...

This paper studies the effect of stock liquidity on blockholder governance. Conditional upon acquiring a stake, liquidity reduces the likelihood that a blockholder governs through voice (intervention) – as shown by the greater propensity to file Schedule 13Gs (passive investment) than 13Ds...

We compare activism and takeovers from a blockholder's perspective who can invest effort into improving firm value. Profits from the two intervention modes move in opposite directions when the marginal return to effort changes such that activism, although less efficient, can be more profitable....

This chapter reviews the single high profile case in which twentieth century antitakeover law has come to bear on management defense against a twenty-first century activist challenge — the Delaware Court of Chancery's decision to sustain a low-threshold poison pill deployed against an activist...

At a time when hedge fund returns have been stagnating and failing to meet expectations in the period from 2004-2007, they have also attracted significant amounts of capital as investors have eagerly sought to secure above market returns. Pressured to perform in the wake of the 2008 financial...