Times Online- The modern activist shareholder seems to be turning Theodore Roosevelt’s maxim – “Speak softly and carry a big stick†– on its head. A man with a big mouth and a Derringer is not goingto stop an army in its tracks but obscure investors with 1 per cent – or less – of a company’s stock are setting the agenda for a clutch of giant companies.
It seems absurd that John Mayo, the former deputy chief executive of Marconi, has any right to be telling Arun Sarin how to run his business but, with a 0.0004 per cent stake in Vodafone, he has forced the mobile telecommunications group’s chief executive to defend its debt structure and reconsider the sale of its US business.
It is extraordinary that The Children’s Investment Fund, which owns about 1 per cent of ABN Amro, has, in effect, put the Dutch bank up for sale. Nelson Peltz took a 3 per cent shareholding in Cadbury Schweppes and forced a break-up of the company. And Atticus Capital has taken ownership of 1 per cent of Barclays and told it to drop its bid for ABN.
