Imagine that you are an American ceo. You have just spent your week dealing with the damned regulators, the latest bs on social media, the lawyers and their ever more brain-aching rules about what you can say and to whom, a president in Washington who urges you take a patriotic rather than merely law-abiding stance to paying taxes and campaigners who think it is your corporation's obligation to reduce social inequality. You finally get a moment to do the job you are remarkably well paid for-running a global firm in the pursuit of long-term profit-when the phone rings. It's a banker on the line. "Hello? We're hearing rumours that an activist hedge fund has bought 4.9% of your shares." Activists are not, in this instance, tree-huggers who dislike what your company is doing to the atmosphere. They are hedge funds that seek to shake up your company's management. It is like a ruler hearing rumours of a coup. It is the call that every ceo in America dreads getting-or has already received.
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