Investors now are speculating which companies have the environment, social and governance (ESG) credentials to thrive in the incoming Biden administration. The reality is that few companies are equipped for a resurgence in environmental regulation. Their governance structures are outdated and rigid...
Money managers who use environmental, social and governance factors in their investment analysis say climate change continues to be their top concern and the leading criteria as they put money to work. The amount of professional money managed using all three ESG criteria rose sharply, according to a group that measures this type of investment, and now represents 33% of the $51.4 trillion in total U.S. assets under professional management...
Shareholder activist Trian Fund Management LP has taken big stakes in investment firms Invesco Ltd. and Janus Henderson Group PLC and plans to agitate for deal making aimed at building a rival to the biggest asset managers in the world. Trian has accumulated 9.9% stakes in both Invesco IVZ, -1.40% and Janus Henderson JHG, -0.55% , with the two positions totaling roughly $900 million, people familiar with the matter said...
Two members of the House of Representatives asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Palantir Technologies Inc.’s disclosures and governance ahead of the controversial software company’s Wednesday direct listing...
Gilead Sciences Inc. will pay $21 billion to buy biotech Immunomedics Inc. and its prized breast-cancer drug, the company said Sunday, a sign of the value of the cancer-drugs business. Immunomedics has a market value of roughly $10 billion following a recent surge in its stock, meaning that Gilead is paying up to secure ownership of the company. Gilead agreed to pay $88 a share in cash for Immunomedics, whose shares closed at $42.25 Friday. That represents a 108% premium...
Vivendi on Tuesday said it will team up with activist investor Amber Capital to get board representation at media conglomerate Lagardere...
Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis, the two largest independent services meant to advise investors on crucial shareholder votes, have come out against the reelection of Tesla Inc.’s board chair on concerns about executive compensation and board independence...
Twitter, Inc. TWTR, on Monday named Dr. Fei-Fei Li to its board of directors as a new independent director, effective immediately...
Hertz Global Holdings Inc. disclosed Tuesday that it was restoring the salaries of senior executives to pre-COVID-19 levels, given the heavy workload required as the car rental company looks to fend off a default...
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...