Hedge Fund Alpha has notes from the 2025 13D Monitor Active-Passive Investor Summit, held live at The Pierre Hotel in New York City on October 21. For more than 16 years, the Summit has served as the industry’s most important forum for leaders in activist and passive investing to meet, discuss current campaigns, and shape the future of shareholder engagement.
Also see our coverage of the 2025 Robin Hood Investors Conference, 2025 Invest For Kids Conference, and the 2025 Capitalize For Kids Investors Conference
Subscribers can access the full PDF report of our 2025 13D Monitor Active-Passive Investor Summit coverage at the bottom of this page.
2025 13D Monitor Active-Passive Investor Summit Agenda
7:30-8:20am Closed Door Breakfast
7:45 am Conference Registration Opens
8:25 am Opening Remarks
- Ken Squire, Founder and President, 13D Monitor/13D Management
8:30 am Investment Idea: Starboard Value
- Jeffrey C Smith, Managing Member and the Chief Executive Officer & Chief Investment Officer, Starboard Value LP
Jeff Smith presented three undervalued operational turnaround ideas in three different US based companies, each with activist paths to improved profitability and strategic clarity.
Starboard is pushing one company toward Rule of 40 performance and has already added new directors to support the shift. At a travel firm, he called out the value in the fast-growing experiences segment and a potential sale of another unit. At a power company, the firm is urging the separation of its valuable nuclear energy stake to better showcase the strong earnings power in the de-risked core business. Smith believes all three names offer substantial upside as transformation plans are executed.
Full details can be found in the linked coverage.
– See: Starboard CEO Jeff Smith Targets These Three Stocks
9:00 am Fireside Chat: Jay Clayton
- Jay Clayton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York,
9:25 am Panel: 2025 Proxy Season Recap and 2026 Outlook
- Bruce Goldfarb, President and Chief Executive Officer, Okapi Partners LLC
- Jessica McDougall, Partner and Head of Corporate Governance and Shareholder Engagement, Longacre Square Partners
- Patricia Olasker, Partner, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP
9:45 am Investment Idea: JANA Partners
- Scott Ostfeld, Managing Partner and Portfolio Manager, JANA Partners LLC
9:55 am Panel: Current Climate for M&A Activism
- Joe Berardino, Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal
- Sagar Gupta, Portfolio Manager, Anson Funds
- Walied Soliman, Global Chair, Norton Rose Fulbright
- Sebastian Tiller, Partner, Vinson & Elkins LLP
10:20 am Investment Idea: Engaged Capital
- Glenn Welling, Principal & Chief Investment Officer, Engaged Capital
Glenn Welling highlighted this high-tech manufacturer as a deeply undervalued leader in machine vision technology with significant room for operational improvement. He sees the company’s new management focused on expanding its customer base and accelerating adoption through AI enabled tools that simplify deployment and dramatically reduce setup time.
Engaged Capital believes the company can unlock both revenue growth and at least 1,000 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion by streamlining costs and improving returns on investment. With a clear activist plan and an achievable execution path, Welling projected that the stock could nearly double over three years as earnings recover and the market recognizes the company’s renewed focus on profitable growth.
Full details can be found in the linked coverage.
– See: Engaged Capital Sees This High-Tech Manufacturer Doubling
10:40 am Refreshment Break
10:55 am Fireside Chat: Scott Winter and Jessica Graziano
- Jessica Graziano, Director, Chair of Audit Committee and Member of Governance and Executive Committees of Air Products & Chemicals, Inc., (former CFO, US Steel)
- Scott Winter, Co-Chair, Innisfree M&A Incorporated
11:20 am Investment Idea: Impactive Capital
- Lauren Taylor Wolfe, Managing Partner, Impactive Capital
Lauren Taylor Wolfe warned that capital spending on artificial intelligence has entered bubble territory that is unlikely to be justified by near term cash flows, urging investors to concentrate on overlooked, fundamentally strong value names instead of chasing hype. Full details will be available in the linked coverage.
She illustrated distortions in value indices and highlighted opportunities similar to “owning railroads in 2000” rather than paying premium multiples for speculative growth. Impactive remains committed to long duration value creation, citing successful engagements, and believes patience and active impact can deliver superior returns as exuberance ultimately fades.
– See: Impactive Capital’s Wolfe Declares Definitive AI Bubble
11:40 am Panel: Defending Against Activism
- Dan Burch, Chief Executive Officer, MacKenzie Partners, Inc.
- Barrett Golden, Partner, Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher
- Elina Tetelbaum, Partner, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
12:00 pm Panel: Activism in Europe
- Tom Matthews, Partner, White & Case LLP
12:20 pm Lunch Panel / Activist Lightning Round
- David Johnson, Founder and Managing Partner, Caligan Partners LP
- Alex Silver, Co-Founder & CIO, Ananym Capital Management
- James Smith, Founder and CIO, Palliser Capital (UK) Ltd
James Smith pitched a Korean chemical company and a Japanese cement firm as Asian industrial leaders trading at severe governance driven valuation discounts. He argued that the firm’s 79 percent ownership of an energy company is valued far below its worth and laid out a multi-step plan including buybacks funded by partial monetization of the energy stake to better align incentives and close a more than 70 percent NAV gap. Full details will be available in the linked coverage.
Smith also sees over 90 percent upside at a cement maker as markets fail to credit the economic value of its highly profitable US subsidiary. He believes enhanced disclosure, capital recycling from non core assets, and a shift toward higher returning investments can deliver a valuation rerating consistent with Tokyo Stock Exchange reforms pushing companies to improve capital efficiency.
An in-depth discussion and pitch deck can be found in the linked article.
– See: Palliser Capital Pitches Two Asian Stocks Which Should At Least Double
1:30 pm Panel: Trending Legal and Regulatory Issues
- Lawrence Elbaum, Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
- Jennifer Longhurst, Partner, McCarthy Tétrault LLP
- Doug Rappaport, Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
1:50 pm Investment Idea: Corvex Management
- Keith Meister, Founder & CIO, Corvex Management LP
Keith Meister cited three companies as examples of high quality companies where active ownership can support major strategic improvements and unlock rerating potential. Full details will be available in the linked coverage.
Meister stressed that activism is most effective when collaborative, not combative. He views the current market as highly concentrated, creating opportunities to accumulate excellent businesses at compelling valuations outside a narrow group of large cap AI winners. Corvex remains focused on enabling management teams to operate more efficiently as public companies, drive returns, and reduce cost of capital.
– See: Corvex’s Keith Meister – Activism “Is Not About Having Fights”
2:10 pm Panel: Withhold Campaigns: The Implications for Vote No
- Leza Bieber, Partner, Freshfields
- Lex Suvanto, CEO, Edelman Smithfield
- Qin Tuminelli, SVP, Contested Situations Advisory Team, Jefferies
2:30 pm Fireside Chat: Donna Anderson and Ken Squire
- Donna Anderson, Former Head of Global Corporate Governance, T. Rowe Price
- Ken Squire, Founder and President, 13D Monitor/13D Management
2:55 PM Fireside Chat:
- Ele Klein, Partner, McDermott Will & Schulte
- J. Travis Laster, Vice Chancellor, Delaware Court of Chancery
3:20 pm Refreshment Break
3:35 pm Proxy Advisor Fireside Chat
- Andrew Freedman, (moderator), Co-Managing Partner and Chair of Shareholder Activism Practice, Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP
- Andrew Borek, Head of Special Situations Research , Institutional Shareholder Services Inc.
- Jason McCandless, Senior Director, Glass Lewis & Co.
4:00 pm Investment Idea: Scott Ferguson
- Scott Ferguson, Managing Partner, Sachem Head Capital Management
4:20 pm TBD
4:45 pm Fireside Chat: Seth Fischer and Ken Squire
- Seth Fischer, Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Oasis Management Company Ltd.
- Ken Squire, Founder and President, 13D Monitor/13D Management
5:10 pm Cocktail Reception
6:00 pm Conference Concludes
See the full PDF of our coverage of the 2025 13D Monitor Active-Passive Investor Summit below.
