Oldman and his gang used the weapons of the President and his team against those exact people, in an activist situation, the company is using the money of the shareholders against a fellow shareholder. Oldman’s crew then deploys these weapons, meant to be used only by the Secret Service, against such Service members, which enables them to neutralize the unit and hijack Air Force One (which is then where the rest of the action takes place.) While an imperfect and hyperbolic analogy that in no way implies anything remotely approaching equivalence, just as Mr. Oldman and his compatriots pose as Russian journalists who board Air Force One under false pretenses (near the start of the movie) and then, with the help of a traitorous Secret Service agent, gain access to a cache of heavy weaponry on the plane supposed to be used by the Secret Service to protect the President. President, and Gary Oldman in a masterfully villainous performance. ![]() Considering all the companies that The Big Three own who have defended themselves against activists, this has likely amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars over the years effectively out of the pockets of investors who have chosen to invest in funds managed by BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, to say nothing of the thousands of other investors who have effectively footed the other 80% of these bills.Īnother way to understand this concept, in a hopefully illustrative but extremely hyperbolic way, is to consider the 1997 action film Air Force One, starring Harrison Ford as the U.S. This effectively means that every dollar spent by an S&P 500 company on activist defense is essentially tantamount to taking greater than 20 cents out of the pocket of the funds managed by these three firms. Now consider this in the context of “The Big Three” index fund managers: BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, whose funds are believed to hold, when aggregated, more than 20% of the shares of S&P 500 companies. Meaning, every dollar spent by a company on activist defense effectively comes out of the pocket of its owners, which means the pocket of its shareholders, as again, the owners of a company are its shareholders. One can start to see the absurdity of incurring such expenses if viewed from the standpoint of an owner. Peltz from becoming elected to the board, before taking certain satisfactory steps that resulted in Trian ultimately halting its proxy campaign. To wit, Disney stated in its proxy statement that it expected to incur $40 million of expenses in connection with its solicitation of proxies, which means that Disney was basically prepared to spend $40 million of the shareholders’ money, to essentially prevent Mr. ![]() ![]() Peltz to the board of The Walt Disney DIS Company (“Disney”). (“Trian”) has created significant value at several companies over the years, saw this up close in Trian’s recent proxy campaign seeking the election of Mr. For example, the activist investor Nelson Peltz, who with his firm Trian Fund Management, L.P. ![]() A proxy contest is an expensive undertaking, yet the boards of directors of some companies show little hesitancy in spending the company’s money (which ultimately belongs to the shareholders) to “defend” these companies, which, at its core, is really about defending their jobs as continuing directors.
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