For anyone who thinks that Starbucks ' ( NASDAQ:SBUX ) long growth arc has started to level out, there's a billionaire who disagrees, and he's putting his investors' money where his mouth is. Bill Ackman's hedge fund, Pershing Square, has taken a $900 million stake in the coffeehouse chain, and he sees the stock doubling in the next three years...
As Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) squares off against activist investor Daniel Loeb, it could turn out to be a very acrimonious battle. Fights for corporate control are rarely prim affairs, but will things get personal in this case? The New York Post says that, according to two unnamed sources, Loeb has "suggested" he has "damaging information" on descendants of a Campbell founder who are still involved in the business...
Investors in NorthStar Realty Europe ( NYSE:NRE ) woke up to news Tuesday morning that one of the company's largest investors is looking to shake things up at the company. Senvest Management, which owns 9.55% of NorthStar, is pushing the company's external advisor, Colony Capital ( NYSE:CLNY ) , to realize value at the undervalued European REIT, after years of a stagnating stock price...
Bill Ackman's high-profile missteps more recently have put a dent in Pershing Square Capital Management's returns, and investors in the hedge fund are apparently losing confidence in the billionaire investor's ability to bounce back from adversity. Post to Facebook Has Bill Ackman lost his touch?...
You might be surprised by the pay increases given to big pharma CEOs in 2017. The average pay increase for all U.S. workers last year was 3.1%, according to the Society for Human Resource Management...
As Netflix 's ( NASDAQ:NFLX ) blowout earnings showed, scale matters more than ever in the media industry. With distribution going increasingly over the top via the internet, companies will be able to scale their offerings globally. That has allowed huge tech companies from Silicon Valley to enter the content game . Amid these changes, increasingly huge distribution platforms need must-watch content...
Here's Where Things Went Wrong for Procter & Gamble in 2017 Markets Motley Fool You know you're having a bad year when your management team has to spend months beating back an activist investor attack on your business strategy. Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) narrowly won that particular battle in 2017. But the consumer products giant can't relax just yet. After all, the key shareholder complaints that fed the challenge -- and led to a shakeup on its board of directors -- are still present...
If the Buffalo Wild Wings ( NASDAQ:BWLD ) acquisition closes, activist shareholder Marcato Capital will reap an approximately 10% return on its investment in the the restaurant chain. Why would Marcato endorse the company's sale to Roark Capital and Arby's, and accept such a meager return for its efforts? In the following episode of Industry Focus: Consumer Goods , the team discusses the primary reason Marcato is happy to rake in its chips and move on. ..
It's been a rough month so far for Snap (NYSE: SNAP) . Shares have lost 16% of their value month-to-date, with most of those losses being driven by a pair of Street analyst downgrades last week (investor sentiment was slightly buoyed by an upgrade)...
P&G struck back against an activist shareholder who's trying to pry a board seat away from the management team...
What happened Shares of Sears Holding Corp ( NASDAQ:SHLD ) battled back last month on a bullish endorsement by board member Bruce Berkowitz and a possible short squeeze . According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence , the stock finished up 20%...
At current prices, Ford Motor Company 's ( NYSE:F ) dividend yield is nearly 5.4%. That's huge. It's also a problem. The problem isn't that Ford can't afford the dividend: Ford's payout is quite reasonable given the company's strong profitability over the last few years...
Suffering shareholders of the telecoms company CenturyLink ( NYSE:CTL ) got a boost on May 8 when activist investor Keith Meister revealed a 5.5% stake in the company, calling the shares undervalued by at least 40% and offering some "friendly" advice on management succession as the company merges with Level 3 Communications ( NYSE:LVLT ) . As both I and fellow Fool Steve Symington have written before, CenturyLink's merger with Level 3 is a smart idea...
Unilever plc (NYSE: UL) released its plan for proceeding with life after spurning The Kraft Heinz Company 's (NASDAQ: KHC) $143 billion takeover bid in mid-February. While there aren't many other companies with the heft of Kraft Heinz that could give Unilever a similar scare, an activist shareholder group acquiring just a few percentage points of ownership could still make life unpleasant for the company...
Change ain't easy, especially when you're a massive conglomerate that spans multiple industries. And General Electric ( NYSE:GE ) is one of the biggest...
Activist investor Carl Icahn is famous for making big bets on companies, and then arm-wrestling their executives into embracing shareholder friendly behaviors. Currently, Icahn owns stakes in 19 businesses that are valued at nearly $20 billion, and while there's no guarantee he'll successfully convince all those companies to pay dividends, divest non-core assets, or sell themselves lock stock and barrel, I wouldn't bet against him...
Longtime shareholder and board member Bill Ackman has given up and sold his entire stake in the embattled drugmaker...
Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn has reportedly set his sights on Bristol-Myers Squibb ( NYSE:BMY ) , a $90 billion-market-cap biopharma that's carving out an important leadership position in immuno-oncology. If past is prologue, Icahn's about to start advocating for big changes at Bristol-Myers Squibb, and those could include an outright sale. Finding a buyer, however, might not be easy...
Shareholders of Bank of America ( NYSE:BAC ) could be in for a windfall if the incoming presidential administration follows through on its promise to roll-back the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. There are a number of ways this would help Bank of America, but one of the most important involves eliminating the Federal Reserve's veto power over bank capital plans -- i.e., dividend and stock repurchase plans...
Healthcare conglomerate Johnson & Johnson ( NYSE:JNJ ) is a trend setter in the sector. Anytime it makes a move, its drug and device peers and Wall Street monitor closely. Though Johnson & Johnson has a cadre of organically developed pharmaceutical products, medical devices, and consumer healthcare products, it's also used M&A throughout its history to expand its product line, further its global reach, and boost its growth prospects...
Former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf Could Be in Serious Trouble Despite testifying under oath that he didn’t learn about Wells Fargo’s fake account scandal until late 2013, there’s reason to believe that John Stumpf knew about the scam years earlier...
Following reports that its board of directors may be willing to entertain offers, DepoMed, Inc. (NASDAQ: DEPO) shares are rallying 12% at noon EST. So what Motley Fool Founders Issue New Stock Buy Alert Starboard Value LP investor Jeffrey Smith has been lobbying for DepoMed to put itself up for sale since acquiring a nearly 10% stake earlier this year, and it seems that only a year after rejecting a $33-per-share acquisition offer from Horizon Pharma (NASDAQ: HZNP) , the board is listening. Interest in......
After years of being plagued by scandals, the trust that oversees chocolate maker Hershey is being forced to change its composition, which could open it up to accepting a takeover offer. Image Source: The Motley Fool Once again, Hershey ( NYSE:HSY ) has rejected an attempted buyout, but a settlement reached between its board of trustees and Pennsylvania's attorney general could mean another takeover offer may soon be in the works...
