Shares of CommVault Systems Inc. CVLT, +1.69% shot up 11% in premarket trade, putting it on track to open at an eight-month high, after the company said activist investor Elliott Management disclosed a 10.3% stake in the data management company. That would make Elliott the largest shareholder, based on FactSet data. CommVault said Elliott, a hedge fund founded by billionaire investor Paul Singer, has nominated four people to join CommVault's board of directors...

Cars.com Inc. CARS, +0.30% said Friday it has agreed to appoint activist investor Starboard Value LP's nominees to its board of directors, and expand the size of the board to 11 members from eight. The appointees will be Michael Kelly, chief executive of investment firm Kelly New Ventures and former CEO of The Weather Channel Companies, Bryan Weiner, executive chairman of digital advertising agency 360i and an additional independent director to be agreed upon later...

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chief Executive Warren Buffett makes less than twice the company’s typical employee, the conglomerate said in a filing Friday. Buffett has earned a $100,000 salary for decades, and receives no bonus or other compensation. Berkshire said its median employee received $53,510 in 2017, or a ratio of 1.87 to 1. Berkshire’s second in command, Vice Chairman Charles T. Munger, has also received a $100,000 salary and no other compensation for years...

Activist shareholder Starboard Value LP said Wednesday that three of the directors nominated to the board of consumer brand company Newell Brands Inc. NWL, -1.35% have pledged to purchase $25 million of Newell stock with their own money if Starboard succeeds in its aim of replacing the Newell boards. Starboard and other participants in its solicitation own about 4.5% of Newell, which owns brands including Rubbermaid, Papermate and Elmer's...

As the public debates the merits of the recent corporate tax cuts, most people are dangerously oblivious to a bigger and in the long run costlier problem: that of picking the wrong CEOs to lead companies in the first place. After all, even the most aggressive tax cut affects only a relatively small portion of a company’s income. But a CEO chosen to lead a business impacts its entire bottom line and the livelihood and well-being of every employee and their families...

The Dropbox Inc. initial public offering looks like it will avoid some of the issues that plagued Snap Inc.’s stock market debut, but there are still governance and financial concerns. Dropbox DBX, +0.00% , an 11-year-old cloud-storage company based in San Francisco, officially filed its long-awaited IPO documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday...

Newell Brands Inc. NWL, -5.26% said Friday that it received notice that activist investor Starboard Value and Opportunity Master Fund Ltd. plans to nominate 10 members to the consumer goods company's board of directors . Newell responded by saying the board is currently comprised of "nine highly ...

Activist shareholder Elliott Advisors is calling on BHP Billiton PLC (BLT.LN) management to undertake a full, independent and transparent review of unification at the dual-listed mining firm by Feb. 20, when it reports first-half earnings. In a letter on Monday to BHP Chairman Ken MacKenzie, Elliott said that unification will deliver more than $22 billion in value to shareholders and cost only $391 million...

Activist investor Dan Loeb's Third Point LLC is keeping pressure on Nestlé SA, saying the giant consumer company needs to do more to realign its portfolio, including getting out of its stake in cosmetics giant L'Oréal SA. The activist, writing to his own investors, says Nestlé has taken some "important" steps recently, pointing to new board members the company announced and plans to increase margins, but believes more is needed. A representative for Nestlé wasn't immediately able to comment...

Some employees really don’t like how much their CEOs get paid — and that can affect the company’s performance. It’s common for chief executives to make significantly higher salaries than lower-level employees do, but that disparity can actually hurt companies , according to a new working paper by Ethan Rouen, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. When a CEO is “overpaid” and employees are “underpaid,” the firm performance suffers the most, he said...

Netflix Inc. said Thursday that it plans to increase the annual salary for a number of its top executives in 2018, and cited the recently passed tax overhaul for the change. Most notably, Netflix NFLX, +3.47% Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos will earn a $12 million base salary in 2018, after bringing in a salary of just $1 million in each of the past three years, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission...

Are you concerned about climate change, or about social issues such as corporate board diversity? Can you as a shareholder have your preferences communicated to company management and perhaps impact corporate policy on these issues...

U.S. activist investor Sachem Head Capital Management LP disclosed on Wednesday that it has taken a 3.4% stake in Whitbread PLC (WTB.LN). Sachem disclosed that it holds contracts for difference over 6.2 million shares in the company, which owns Costa Coffee and Premier Inn. Sachem's managing partner and founder is Scott Ferguson, a former partner at Pershing Square Capital Management LP, run by hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. Whitbread shares are up 250 pence, or 6.7%, at 3960 pence at 1550 GMT...

ZURICH--Swiss chemicals company Clariant AG on Friday rejected many demands of its largest shareholder in the wake of the failed $15 billion merger with U.S.-based Huntsman Corp., escalating a battle with activist investors. Clariant offered White Tale Holdings--which owns more than 20% of Clariant--one seat on its board of directors, short of the three seats White Tale had requested. It also dismissed White Tale's call to hire an investment bank to explore strategic options for the company...

Tucked into the mammoth tax bills Congress is debating are two provisions that will increase the taxation of executive compensation and undermine related governance practices...

Akzo Nobel NV and U.S. rival Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. confirmed Monday they are in talks to join forces in a merger of equals that would create a multibillion-dollar coating and paints giant. The deal would involve the Dutch paint company first proceeding with its existing plan to spin off its specialty chemicals business and distribute the bulk of the proceeds to shareholders. Akzo said that plan, which is unaffected by the Axalta talks, remains on track for April 2018...

Supervalu Inc. is facing a push from an activist investor as the food wholesaler and retailer struggles to reverse a yearslong stock slide. Blackwells Capital LLC, an alternative-investment fund that is one of the company’s 10 biggest shareholders, wants the grocery company SVU, +1.49% to sell dozens of its stores and bring in new leadership, among other demands, according to a letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal...

Executive compensation is one of the many things John Flannery plans to shake up as he tightens the belt at General Electric Co. But his options may be limited. The new chief executive said Friday he was working with the board "on comprehensive changes" to the company's compensation plans to "better align the team with investors." The company declined to elaborate on those plans...

Investors like to follow shareholder activists such as Carl Icahn to buy whatever they’re buying as they push for changes at companies. But here’s another way to play this game. Follow the top managers those activists push out because they disagree on strategy. If the excommunicated managers are any good, they’ll set up a new company. And you can get in on the ground floor for potentially big gains...

(MarketWatch) — Should you take shareholder activism into account when picking investments? The answer is “yes.” The most reliable way to do it, however, might surprise you. Shareholder activism is as old as the corporate form of business organization: Shareholders are owners, and can try to influence a corporation’s behavior either by persuading management to do things differently or, if management refuses to make changes, by garnering enough support from other investors to win a proxy contest. Activists typically target companies whose shares have been performing poorly, proposing actions — from breaking the company into ...

If you Google “CEO use of social media,” you will see a cavalcade of articles that lament the limited activity by CEOs of major companies on sites like Twitter, TWTR, -1.25% Facebook FB, -0.76% or LinkedIn. For example, it has been estimated that more than 60% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have zero presence and that only 20% of the 100 top-performing CEOs as ranked by the Harvard Business Review are active users...

Allegations of sexual harassment. Multiple lawsuits. Boardroom splits. Huge losses. A new CEO drafted late at night amid a bitter row over where it should go next. To put it mildly, there is never a dull day at Uber. As Dara Khosrowshahi becomes CEO of the ride-sharing company, he should probably re-watch a couple of seasons of “Game of Thrones” — because the company looks about as easy to run as Westeros. In its short life, Uber has been a huge success...

Procter & Gamble Co. PG, +0.26% on Monday urged shareholders to vote in favor of its director nominees at its coming annual meeting, and against activist investor Nelson Peltz. "Under the leadership of this board and management team, P&G has undertaken the most significant transformation in the company's history and is executing a winning strategy that is working," the board wrote in a letter to shareholders...

Tenet Healthcare Corp. may be poised for a proxy fight with Glenview Capital Management LLC, the company’s largest institutional shareholder, after two board members representing Glenview resigned their positions. But Tenet THC, +14.60% “may not go gentle into that good night,” said Mizuho analyst Sheryl Skolnick, referencing a well-known Dylan Thomas poem about death. To “be clear: we expect Glenview to mount a campaign to change THC’s direction, potentially even to change management...