Activist Investors Succeed By Piling Into Stocks After A Proxy Contest

Since the week has been relatively short of news, we thought we’d look back at the past proxy season and ask that perennial question – where are they now?

Stocks at the center of a proxy contest in the first half of this year have seen diverging fortunes, with the outcome of the vote apparently having a strong bearing on their return profile. Of the 17 U.S. companies that went to a vote and for which the data is available, those where an activist won at least one board seat are currently up an average of 13% since their respective meetings, while those where management was victorious have not won a lot of new support from the market. Their shares are...