Facebook Inc. FB, +4.56% on Thursday said Robert M. Kimmitt, former deputy secretary of the Treasury and U.S. Ambassador to Germany, has been appointed to the company's board of directors...

Victoria’s Secret has been taken private, which Bank of America says will leave L Brands Inc. on much stronger footing with a stand-alone Bath & Body Works. Calling the beauty chain “one of the best growth stories in retail,” Bank of America analysts led by Lorraine Hutchinson reiterated their buy stock rating for L Brands and the $30 price objective...

The crisis unfolding at NMC Health, the Middle East’s largest hospital operator, has reignited the debate about the governance of overseas companies listing in London. The mystery of NMC’s ownership structure deepened on Monday after founder and co-chairman Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty quit the board of the FTSE 100-listed company over concerns that he misreported his stake...

The public crash and burn of WeWork’s initial public offering and poor early performances from high-priced startups that actually managed to go public in 2019 likely won't stop other “decacorns” from testing the IPO market in 2020, but it may change how they do it. Some of the biggest “decacorns” — startups valued at $10 billion or more on the private markets — made it to market in 2019 as expected , but there are still others that waited and watched an uneven performance by their peers...

Christopher Hohn’s activist fund TCI this week warned several companies, including Airbus AIR, -3.54%  , Moody’s MCO, -0.65%   and Charter Communications CHTR, -0.31%  , to improve the carbon footprints or it will vote against their directors, according to a report by the Financial Times...

Square Inc. is making a change to its accounting after receiving a comment letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission in a move that has implications for other U.S. companies. The payment company is abandoning its practice of offering an adjusted revenue number, a metric that does not conform with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP, the U.S. standard, and that the Securities and Exchange Commission does not allow, as MarketWatch has reported in the past...

The bidding war for Just Eat has become increasingly acrimonious after activist investor Cat Rock Capital on Monday launched a scathing attack on Prosus, accusing it of “undermining” the sale of the U.K. online food-delivery company. Prosus, the Dutch-listed vehicle owned by South African tech conglomerate Naspers, last week made a £4.9 billion hostile cash bid for Just Eat JE, +0.40% in an attempt to gatecrash its already agreed merger with Takeaway.com, a Dutch food-delivery company...

Shares of Fannie Mae FNMA, -10.15%  and Freddie Mac FMCC, -9.80%  have tripled in value this year as shareholders eagerly welcomed the Trump administration’s interest in ending the two mortgage firms’ conservatorship...

The rumbling started last August when the Business Roundtable announced that a company’s responsibility is more than just to its shareholders. Companies actually hold a responsibility to their respective communities as well, this group of corporate chieftains acknowledged. The declaration elicited both praise and condemnation. Among the most cynical reactions was to call the statement “yogababble,” which is a snarky way of questioning purpose-driven terms and language.

EBay Inc. has been here and done this, but the sequel may not have the same payoff. In 2014, activist investor Carl Icahn campaigned and hounded eBay EBAY, -0.80% to spin off its faster-growing PayPal PYPL, +0.43% payments business. Hedge fund activist Dan Loeb of Third Point joined in , and they ultimately prevailed in convincing eBay to sell PayPal in a maelstrom that eventually led to the exit of Chief Executive John Donahoe...

The We Company WE, +0.00% said Wednesday it expects to add Frances Frei to its board of directors once it has completed its initial public offering, ...

Food delivery firm Grubhub, industrial heavyweight 3M and consumer products giant Colgate-Palmolive are all vulnerable targets for activist investors, according to exclusive data. The trio along with software company Autodesk ADSK, +1.97% and dental equipment manufacturer Dentsply Sirona XRAY, +2.08% have been identified as possible activism targets in a report for MarketWatch by research firm Activist Insight...

Activist investor Carl Icahn has complained that Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s deal for Anadarko Petroleum Corp. was too rich, pointing at interference from Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett and a competing bid from Chevron Corp. Icahn may be right about the deal, but academic research points to a different potential factor that Icahn has not identified. Occidental OXY, +3.02% and Anadarko APC, +1.11% share the same audit firms, and those auditors share an office...

Lyft Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc. say they are business rivals, but the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had a lot more comments on Uber’s business before both companies went public this year, in particular focusing on the ride-hailing leader’s adjusted financial numbers. Uber UBER, +0.00% and Lyft LYFT, +3.88% filed draft registration statements, or S-1s, confidentially with the SEC on the same day: Dec. 6, 2018...

Corporate proxy statements can be very rich sources of information, the kind of information that could benefit investors — if they know what to look for. Since 2002 — the era of Enron — the Sarbanes-Oxley laws have required much more disclosure in U.S. proxies, which are provided to shareholders so they can make informed decisions about matters that will be brought up at the annual meeting...

United Technologies Corp. UTX, +1.06% said Friday it does not agree with a letter from hedge fund Third Point LLC released early Friday that questions the strategic rationale behind its proposed merger with Raytheon Co. RTN, -2.39% "While we welcome the opinions of all of our shareowners, we do not agree with the assertions and conclusions in the Third Point letter," the company said in a statement...

BlackBerry Ltd. reported fiscal first-quarter earnings on Wednesday that led with and were dominated by non-standard numbers, putting the company at risk of an enforcement action from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The headline on the earnings release highlights the cybersecurity company’s non-GAAP revenue, or revenue that does not conform with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, a metric the regulator does not allow...

TOKYO-- Nissan Motor Co. shareholders voted to overhaul the company's board structure, a key goal of Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa. Following a rowdy meeting where shareholders shouted at current board members, Nissan management and each other, the measure passed in large part due to the support of alliance partner Renault SA, which owns 43.4% of the Japanese company. Shareholders approved the creation of new board committees for executive compensation, audit matters and director nominations...

Carnival Corp. and its subsidiary Princess Cruise Lines was fined $20 million earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating the terms of probation and dumping plastic and other waste overboard. The original transgression cost the company $40 million two years ago. The case points out, pardon the pun, how hard it is to “turn the ship around” when the ship is a large, multinational company...

Company shareholders are well-positioned to address income inequality by clamping down on sky high corporate pay, but new research says they’ll have to put their mouth where their money is. Shareholders — everyone from a retail investor with a 401(K) to asset management firms with vast pools of money — need the incentives and power to question exorbitant corporate pay in the companies where they invest money, according to a new paper from the Economic Policy Institute...

Gannett Co. is poised to retain control of its entire board in a proxy fight with a hedge-fund-backed rival that made a hostile bid for the USA Today owner, according to people familiar with the matter...

Trian Fund Management LP may wage an activist campaign at Legg Mason Inc. and push the money manager to improve its flagging results, according to people familiar with the matter.  Trian recently has held discussions with Legg Mason management about the need to cut costs and improve profit margins, the people said. The two sides may still negotiate a settlement that sidesteps a proxy fight, they added...

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY, -1.93% said in a Monday announcement that Chief Executive Steven Temares is stepping down from his position and resigning from the board. He has been part of the company leadership since the company went public in 1992 and has been CEO since 2003. Mary Winston, a recent addition to the home retailer's board, has been appointed interim CEO. A committee will bring on an executive search firm to name a permanent replacement...

Acacia Research Corporation ACTG, -0.32% today announced it has appointed Isaac T. Kohlberg, Senior Associate Provost and Chief Technology Development Officer at Harvard University, and Luis Rinaldini, CEO of Groton Partners and former Vice Chairman and Global Head of Telecom Mergers & Acquisitions at Credit Suisse First Boston, to its Board of Directors (“Board”). These appointments complete the rebuilding of Acacia’s Board and bring its membership to six directors...