Sometimes M&A involves dissident shareholders and a proxy
contest. This building block focuses on the issues that arise in
that context.
Introduction
Shareholder activism occurs when an individual or group of
shareholders takes action to bring about change within a public
company without purchasing a controlling interest.
No company is too big, too well governed or too profitable to
avoid the threat of shareholder activism entirely. Targets have
included BHP, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CP Rail, Hyundai, Procter &
Gamble, SAP, Sony and many other notable large market
capitalization companies.
The number of global shareholder activism initiatives has
generally increased steadily year after year, with a brief pullback
in 2019 following the record pace set in 2018. To date, the
COVID-19 pandemic has had the effect of slightly subduing global
shareholder activism, with the number of global shareholder
activism campaigns launched in line with those seen in the
