Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis in the Ukraine, activist investors were a force to be feared, having deployed almost $300 billion USD of funds in their targets as of Q3 2018. Whilst the unreliability in markets resulting from such geopolitical issues has tempered public activist investor campaigns, their ‘dry powder’ infers they are still a phenomenon to be reckoned with. This means that companies - while facing less external and public disruption to strategy and performance—are provided with an ideal time to develop their own activist investor mindset.
In Deloitte’s new perspective, Activist investors: gaining the activist’s edge, we share some of the attributes of an activist investor’s mentality that can help companies achieve favourable outcomes when examining their existing strategies.