Bebchuk: Øget aktivisme fra hedgefonde er positivt

Den amerikanske forsker Lucian Bebchuk, en velkendt fortaler for investoraktivisme overfor børsnoterede selskaber, påviser i et forskningspapir, at selskaber, der udsættes for aktivisme, præsterer højere værdiskabelse: ”We test the empirical validity of a claim that has been playing a central role in debates on corporate governance – the claim that interventions by activist hedge funds have a detrimental effect on the long-term interests of companies and their shareholders. We subject this claim to a comprehensive empirical investigation, examining a long time window of five years following activist interventions, and we find that the claim it is not supported by the data. We find that activist interventions are followed by improved operating performance of the target company during the five-year period following these interventions. The identified improvements are not driven by reversion to the mean of underperforming companies, and targets’ performance improves relative to that of peer companies with the same performance at the time of the intervention.“