DealLawyers.com Blog

FTI Consulting’s M&A, Activism and Governance Team recently released its 4th Annual Shareholder Activism State of the Market (available for request). The report looks at “fundamental influencers of the shareholder activism market, including the implications of an explosion of new activist funds, the challenges activists have in winning board seats in proxy contests and what the data says about the new leadership at ISS.”

Here are key points from their analysis from the summary:

– A further expansion of settlements being made privately. Over 70% of settlements were reached before an activist’s position was revealed publicly, a record over the past decade.

– A continued speed of settlement. Settlements reached after an activist made its position public took, on average, 46 days to settle. This is slightly up from last year but well below the pre-universal proxy average of 71 days.

– A focus on committees. Over the past year, nearly a quarter of settlements included the creation of a special committee.

– Activists win more seats via settlement. Since universal proxy, 58% of settlements reached were for two or more Board seats, but in 62% of proxy fights activists won less than 2 seats.

– Meredith Ervine