Entrepreneurial Shareholder Activism: Hedge Funds and Other Private Investors

We examine recent confrontational activism campaigns by hedge funds and other private investors. The main parallels between the groups are a significantly positive market reaction for the target firm around the initial Schedule 13D filing date, significantly positive returns over the subsequent year, and the activist's high success rate in achieving its original objective. Further, both activists frequently gain board representation through real or threatened proxy solicitations. Two major differences are that hedge funds target more profitable firms than other activists, and hedge funds address cash flow agency costs whereas other private investors change the target's investment strategies.     

Corporate governance and hedge fund activism

Recently, the mainstream media have paid considerable attention to hedge funds behaving as agents of corporate change. We study this phenomenon using a unique dataset of hedge fund activism for the period 1994–2005, and find evidence that hedge fund activists improve both short-term stock performance and long-term operating performance of their targets. The most dramatic changes in performance accrue to targets where activists seek corporate governance changes and reductions in excess cash. Additionally, hedge funds themselves benefit from activism: the risk-adjusted annual performance of hedge funds seeking changes in corporate governance is about 7–11% higher than for non-activist hedge funds and hedge funds pursuing less aggressive activism. These results imply that hedge funds can facilitate long-lasting changes in corporate governance, cash flows, and operating performance that benefit target firm shareholders and hedge fund investors alike.     

Hedge fund activism and trade credit

This study shows that trade creditors extend a negative response to hedge fund activism. Relative to control firms, target firms' accounts payable decrease by 28%, post activist intervention by hedge funds. This reduction is due to supply-side factors, highlighting suppliers' expropriation concerns. The study provides novel evidence that the repercussions of hedge fund activism extend beyond the formal debtholders, and informal debtholders such as trade creditors are not an exception. Further, target firms also offer lower trade credit to their customers after hedge fund activism. Trade receivables decrease by 12% relative to control firms. Activism-induced changes in cash flows potentially account for this reduction in trade receivables.     

The Early Returns to International Hedge Fund Activism: 2000–2010

In this summary of their recent article in the Review of Financial Studies, the authors provide an overview of the methods and findings of the first comprehensive study of worldwide hedge fund activism—one that examined the effectiveness of some 1,740 separate “engagements” of public companies by 330 different hedge funds operating in 23 countries in Asia, Europe, and North America during the period 2000‐2010. The study reports, first of all, that the incidence of shareholder activism is greatest in companies and countries with high institutional ownership, particularly U.S. institutions. In virtually all countries, with the possible exception of Japan, large holdings by institutional investors increased the probability that companies would be targeted by activists. Nevertheless, in all countries (except for the United States), foreign institutions—especially U.S. funds investing in non‐U.S. companies—have played a more important role than domestic institutional investors in supporting activism. The authors also report that those engagements that succeeded in producing “outcomes” were accompanied by positive and significant abnormal stock returns, not only upon the announcement of the activist's block purchase, but throughout the entire holding period. “Outcomes” were identified as taking one of four forms: (1) increases in dividends or stock buybacks; (2) replacement of board members; (3) corporate restructurings such as sales or spinoffs of businesses; and (4) takeover (or sale) of the entire company. But if such outcomes were associated with high shareholder returns, in the many cases where there were no such outcomes, the eventual, holding‐period returns to shareholders, even after taking account of the initially positive market reaction to news of the engagement, were indistinguishable from zero. The authors found that activists succeeded in achieving at least one of their proposed outcomes in roughly one out of two (53%) of the 1,740 engagements. But this success rate varied considerably across countries, ranging from a high of 61% for North American companies, to 50% for European companies, but only 18% engagements of Asian companies—with Japan, again, a country of high disclosure returns but unfulfilled expectations and disappointing outcomes. Outcomes also tended to be strongly associated with the roughly 25% of the total engagements that involved two or more activists (referred to as “wolfpacks”) and produced very high returns.     

资本市场流动性与股东积极主义的扩展式博弈研究

通过应用扩展式博弈分析方法,研究市场流动性与股东积极主义之间的关系,并探讨不同股东积极主义形式问的选择.研究发现:市场流动性与股东积极性之间并不存在简单的线性关系.而在不同的股东积极主义形式的选取上,单位成功几率成本低的股东积极主义形式更有可能被大股东所采用,但市场流动性的提高会减弱大股东对单位成功几率成本低的策略的偏好.     

The anatomy of block accumulations by activist shareholders

We conduct a large-sample analysis of investor activism in the US based on all 13D filings from 2001 to 2016. While hedge funds represent the largest filer group, the sample contains a diverse set of other activist shareholders. This raises the question to what extent other investors perform a governance role similar to hedge funds. Based on target firms' outcome variables, like announcement returns of activist campaigns and changes in operating performance measures, we find surprisingly few differences. However, hedge funds play a special role when it comes towards takeovers. They stimulate monitoring activities among relatively larger firms and they help to set payout policies.     

Shareholder wealth effects of CalPERS' activism

In the past decade, institutional investors have become more active in monitoring management and voting the shares they control. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) was a leader in this wave of activism. This study investigates the long-term returns an investor with public information could earn by buying a portfolio of firms targeted by CalPERS and whether the success of CalPERS' activism depends on the aggressiveness of the targeting. The evidence supports the idea that visible and aggressive activism leads to substantial increases in shareholder wealth while a quieter activism does not.     

Activist hedge funds and firm disclosure

This study examines whether firms' disclosure decisions are affected by the presence of activist hedge funds. Using a large sample of firms that experienced increases in ownership by activist hedge funds, we find that firms are more likely to cease providing financial guidance or reduce the information in the guidance in the quarter subsequent to new investment by activist hedge funds. These results hold even for firms that experienced good quarters and consistently provided guidance in previous quarters. Since guidance has been shown to be beneficial to capital market participants in many ways, reduced guidance has meaningful market implications. Our findings highlight a negative and possible unintended consequence of activist hedge funds' investment in firms, which provides some counterbalance to the numerous positive consequences documented in the prior literature on hedge fund activism.     

Shareholder activism of public pension funds: The political facet

This paper studies the political incentive of public pension funds in shareholder activism. Using a sample of shareholder proposals from 1993 to 2013 and a hand-collected data set of the political variables of public pension funds, we document evidence consistent with the “political attention hypothesis.” We find that the number of politicians on public pension fund boards is significantly positively related to the frequency with which portfolio firms are targeted. Moreover, the frequency of social-responsibility proposals by public pension funds increases significantly, as the funds have a greater number of board members running for election to public office. However the frequency of corporate governance proposals is not related to the number of board members running for elections to public office. Furthermore, we document that political connection between a portfolio firm and a public pension fund mitigates the firm’s likelihood of being targeted by the fund with social-responsibility proposals. This result supports the “political contribution hypothesis.” The paper provides direct evidence that public pension-fund board members employ shareholder proposals to enhance their political capital.     

Stock price effects of climate activism: Evidence from the first Global Climate Strike

The first Global Climate Strike on March 15, 2019, represented a historical turning point in climate activism. We investigate the cross-section of stock price reactions to this event for a large sample of European firms. The strike's unanticipated success caused a decrease in the stock prices of carbon-intensive firms. The effect appears to be driven by the increased public attention to climate activism. Furthermore, after the first Global Climate Strike financial analysts downgraded their longer-term earnings forecasts on carbon-intensive firms.     

Who are the active investors? : Evidence from venture capital

This paper examines the determinants and consequences of investor activism in venture capital. Using a hand-collected sample of European venture capital deals, it shows the importance of human capital. Venture capital firms with partners that have prior business experience are more active recruiting managers and directors, helping with fundraising, and interacting more frequently with their portfolio companies. Independent venture capital firms are also more active than ‘captive’ (bank-, corporate-, or government-owned) firms. After controlling for endogeneity, investor activism is shown to be positively related to the success of portfolio companies.     

Synthetic hedge funds

We provide evidence on the performance and the replication success of a broad sample of 72 synthetic hedge funds from January 2009 to December 2013. Thereby, we assign the term “synthetic hedge fund” to mutual funds and exchange-traded funds with hedge fund indices as their benchmarks. Replication success is measured through different perspectives from distributional characteristics to risk-adjusted performance. We find an overall significant underperformance of synthetic hedge funds compared to an appropriate benchmark index. Furthermore, mutual funds (associated with active portfolio management) can produce return characteristics closer to hedge fund benchmarks than exchange-traded funds (associated with passive management) can. From a single strategy perspective, we find a picture of heterogeneity. Regarding the market environment, we show larger return differences for unusual market conditions than for regular ones.     

Data-conditioning biases,performance, persistence and flows: The case of Canadian equity funds

This study constitutes the first comprehensive examination of Canadian mutual fund performance using a dataset free of all conditioning biases. The goal is to test many of the same hypotheses which have been previously addressed using US data. The sample is carefully constructed so as to avoid not only survivorship bias but also a form of backfilling bias that exists because funds have a timing option as to when to first provide results to information vendors. The deleterious impact of both forms of bias is documented. Not unlike what has been found in the US, on average fund managers net-of-expenses underperform benchmarks, but it also seems clear that their analysis and trading contribute to portfolio performance. I also present evidence that, at least on a short-term basis, success breeds success. Investors seem aware of this since money flows to successful funds. The strategy of chasing returns looks to be a viable one. One useful byproduct of this work is that an independent dataset has allowed for the corroboration of many of the same stylized facts that have been previously observed in the US.     

Hedge fund activism,CEO turnover and compensation

This paper examines the governance role of hedge fund activists by analyzing the impact of these activists on CEO turnover, CEO pay, and CEO pay-performance link in targeted companies. Using the difference-in-difference approach, we first find significantly higher CEO turnover following hedge fund activism. After we split target companies into the CEO-turnover and non-CEO-turnover sub-samples, we find that only new CEOs in targeted companies get more compensation following hedge fund activism while incumbent CEO pay does not significantly change. The relationship between CEO bonuses and return on assets following hedge fund activism also differs across the subsamples split by CEO turnover. Pay-performance relationship is enhanced by hedge fund activism for new CEOs, but not for incumbent CEOs. In additional analyses, we document that CEO turnover is positively associated with Tobin’s Q and shareholder votes on Say on Pay in target companies after hedge fund activism.     

Better than the original? The relative success of copycat funds

We construct hypothetical copycat funds to investigate the performance of free-riding strategies that duplicate the disclosed asset holdings of actively managed mutual funds. On average, copycat funds are able to generate performance that is comparable to their target mutual funds, taking into account transaction costs and expenses. However, their relative success increased significantly after 2004 when the SEC imposed quarterly disclosure regulations on all mutual funds. We also find substantial cross-sectional dispersion in the relative performance of copycat funds. Free-riding on the portfolios disclosed by past winning funds and funds that disclose representative holdings generates significantly better performance net of trading costs and expenses than the vast majority of mutual funds. The results indicate that free-riding on disclosed fund holdings is an attractive strategy and suggest that mutual funds can suffer from the information disclosure requirements.     

Equity fund size and growth: Implications for performance and selection

Should individuals choose the largest or smallest equity funds for investment? This study explores the relationship of equity fund size to performance. Historical returns of large funds are found to be superior to their smaller peers. Yesterday's best performing fund's tend to become today's largest funds as individuals invest heavily in response to the communications about the fund's past success. But the findings suggest that, once large, equity funds do not outperform their peers. Especially for funds in aggressive growth objectives, the advantages of being small appear to outweigh the disadvantages. For individual investors wtih aggressive growth objectives, a strategy of investing in smaller funds may thus be wealth maximizing.     

Road Funds, User Charges, and Taxes

Insufficient or uncertain budgetary allocations to road maintenancehave resulted in road deterioration that has significantly increasedproduction and transport costs in many countries. To avoid thisproblem, highway proferssionals advocate the establishment ofdedicated road funds, managed by independent road boards madeup of user representatives. The road boards would have the powerto determine both the level of charges for road use and thelevel of expenditure on road maintenance. By contrast, macroeconomistsand public finance specialists have tended to resist the establishmentof dedicated road funds. They argue that road funds reduce fiscalflexibility, do not adequatedly address problems associatedwith the provision of public goods or the internalization ofexternalities, and often are not well managed. In general, there are two long-term institutional options forreconciling fiscal prudence with asset maintenance; a road agencythat is operated commercially (subject to the normal oversightof behavior accorded to privatized monopolies), or a reformedand well-functioning budget process. This article argues thatroad funds must be viewed as a provisional, case-specific intermediatestep in the direction of one of the long-term solutions. Therole and nature of road funds should be assessed not on generalprinciples but on a case-by-case basis through the analysisof likely micro-and macroeconomic effects. The article recommendsindicatiors for use in specific cases to determine whether aroad fund should be introduced, continued, or abolished.      

Timing the volatility risk of beta anomaly: Evidence from hedge fund strategies

Hedge funds are known to engage in the betting-against-beta (BAB) strategy arising from beta-anomaly-related market mispricing. This paper examines if equity-oriented hedge funds time the volatility risk when executing the BAB strategy. We apply realised and downside volatility risk measures to assess the BAB strategy. We show that for top volatility risk timers, older funds tend to be better risk timers, while among the bottom volatility risk timers, younger and larger-sized funds stand out as stronger timers of BAB volatility. We observe that the Long/Short Equity funds show evidence as the strongest volatility risk timers of BAB strategy when the market condition turned bad. This is supported by their other effective timing strategies at the same time, including timing the market sentiment. Our findings provide important references for private investors when selecting hedge funds as risk management is crucial to the success/failure of any investments.     

Risk Management,Corporate Governance,and the Search for Long-Term Investors

This discussion explores a number of ways that more effective risk management, corporate governance, and communication with investors can help companies increase their effciency and long-run value. According to one of the panelists, recent surveys of corporate directors suggest that companies should devote more time and attention to three issues—strategy, risk management, and succession planning—and that strategy and risk are the “flipsides of the same coin.” As the panelist argues, “You can't talk about strategy without talking about what risks you're going to take—and what risks you decide to take has to depend on the core competencies that drive the corporate strategy.” In addition to making risk management a critical part of corporate strategy, another notable recommendation is to communicate a company's strategy and business plan as clearly as possible to investors, with the aim of attracting more sophisticated, long-term shareholders. Contrary to popular belief, such a group may well include some hedge funds and other activist shareholders. According to a newly released report on shareholder activism (produced and cited by another panelist), corporate boards should work harder to identify and engage the “largest 10 shareholders in the organization,” with the ultimate goal of cultivating a shareholder base that buys into the company's strategy.