Scary Activist Investors Aren’t That Scary Anymore
Shareholder agitators have been leaning more on their reputations lately than on any concrete actions.
A swarm isn’t so terrifying.
Photographer: Marlena Sloss/Bloomberg
A successful activist strategy — investing in companies and demanding influence — needs to arouse fear in its targets. For years, this meant campaigns against individual executives that savagely detailed missteps and excesses. As Third Point’s Daniel Loeb explained in 2005: “Sometimes a town hanging is useful to establish my reputation.”
Fast-forward to today and the image of activists as the sharks of corporate life is so entrenched that they don’t even try to sound scary anymore. Attacking Salesforce Inc. earlier this year, Elliott Management warned that it would “evaluate the level of engagement necessary to achieve the best outcome for the company.” That’s hardly fear-inspiring rhetoric, and it illustrates how activists have been leaning more on lore than on intimidation recently.