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Discussion Paper
Leader-Follower Dynamics in Shareholder Activism
Activist shareholders play a central role in modern corporations, influencing the capital structure, business strategy, and governance of firms. Such “blockholders” range from investors who actively jawbone or break up firms to index funds that are largely passive in that they limit themselves to voting. In between, however, is a key group of blockholders that have historically focused on trading but have embraced activism as an established business strategy in the past few decades. Campaigns involving such “trading” blockholders have become ubiquitous, increasingly targeting ...
Report
Leader-Follower Dynamics in Shareholder Activism
We propose a theory of coordination and influence among blockholders. Privately informed activists time their trades in sequence to lower acquisition costs, prompting a strategic use of order flows. Leader activists create trading gains for their followers, ultimately influencing their willingness to bear greater value-enhancing intervention costs. Through this channel, informed trades can exhibit predictability, in sharp contrast with Kyle (1985). We explain how this novel predictability shapes free-rider problems affecting governance, and how it produces price abnormalities analogous to ...