this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Activist Investing

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This community is intended to discuss Activist Investors and Activist Investor Groups - terms used to describe individuals or groups who use sufficient ownership to lobby public companies to make changes which a board might otherwise resist. This could be in order to improve working conditions, keep jobs domestic rather than exporting overseas, or encourage more environmentally sustainable choices when operating the business.

Activist investor campaigns can also simply focus on maximizing shareholder value, and can be organized by parties who feel the current board is not meeting the fiduciary obligation to shareholders and wants to influence their decisions and practices. Even hedge funds which specialize in the application of public pressure through media partners can be considered activist investors.

Typically, a threshold of 5% ownership of a company must be reached by an individual or a group before they are recognized. This is because 5% is the ownership level which requires public filing through the SEC using a 13D disclosure - and that public filing will require a public response to demands from the incumbent board of directors.

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Hi all,

I've seen discussions bubbling up about starting an activist investor group, for the apparent purpose of creating a sort of legal entity of some kind that would enable GME investors to more effectively make proposals to our company and that the company would be required to address the proposals to some degree.

I like the idea but frankly I have no idea how such a group would function.

Some simple internet searches don't immediately provide clear answers, this doesn't seem to be a super common idea. Just looking to ask some questions and try to get some information to flesh this idea out a little bit.

  • What would be required to start such a group?
  • How does an activist investor group govern itself?
  • What would a governance structure look like?
  • How does somebody become a member?
  • How do members get their interests represented in the group?
  • Would there be voting mechanisms?
  • Are lawyers required?
  • What other costs would be involved?
  • I presume the group would be based in USA. Which country or jurisdiction would this group reside in and what implications would this have for other international members?

I don’t expect anyone to necessarily know the answers to all these questions, this is just what initially comes to my mind. I like the idea, it sounds promising. But a certain amount of education will be required. I will try and do some research of my own but hoping others might know more than me and can maybe enlighten me a little bit a bout this.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I have been looking into this more and have identified a few groups: Climate Action 100, SOC investment Group, ShareAction, Follow This. I have reached out regarding some of these with questions and am waiting a response back. From what I can see we are creating something that has never been done before especially with us having our shares in DRS. From what I can see you become a member by holding a share in the company and contacting the AIG. You then become a member of the AIG in support of a common voice. There are some AIG that are located in London and Amsterdam so it may be possible for it to be international.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Excited to see what you can learn from those established groups! I hope you'll post your conversations and findings here once they are ready.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Nice. Thanks for the info. I've asked ChapGPT about it very minimally. Anyone reading and interested may want to give that a shot - who knows, with the different prompting we could come across something that may really help in short/long run.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Posting a link to your topic here - https://lemmy.whynotdrs.org/post/24204

Encourage anyone seeing this comment who hasn't checked it out yet to give it a read!