Seattle Post Intelligencer – Two months ago, a little-known investor demanded that the company that publishes The Miami Herald and The Philadelphia Inquirer be put up for sale. Just 14 days later,after several other investors made the same demand, the board of the publisher, Knight Ridder, caved and put the company on the block.
Unlike the 1980s, when such challenges might have been resisted at all costs, today’s corporate boards are adjusting to a new reality: The activist investor, armed with a few shares and a megaphone, is changing corporate America and the deal-making landscape.
It is happening at large and small companies everywhere. At media giant Time Warner, billionaire financier Carl Icahn has pressed the company to buy back billions of dollars more of its shares — a move that Time Warner has done in part, without crediting Icahn.
At Six Flags, the amusement park company that owns theme parks across the country, including one south of Seattle, Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, pushed the company to put itself up for sale and then took over the board.
The quick response by Knight Ridder came after Private Capital Management, a Florida-based fund managed by Bruce Sherman, started a blistering attack.
