(Bloomberg) -- Vivendi SA demanded that Telecom Italia SpA’s board convene shareholders to appoint new auditors and replace five company directors allied to U.S. activist Elliott Management Corp. Key Insights Vivendi is turning up the heat in its battle to win back control of Italy’s dominant phone company from Elliott after the U.S. activist’s allies last month pushed out the company’s CEO, a Vivendi ally.Telecom Italia’s board, dominated by Elliott allies, has resisted Vivendi’s demand for a shareholder meeting to appoint auditors ...

A major potential bidder for Papa John’s International Inc. has taken itself out of the running, putting pressure on the pizza maker to figure out its future. Trian Fund Management LP, which was evaluating a bid, has decided not to pursue it, according to people familiar with the matter...

The Delaware Court of Chancery has rejected as unfair a proposed settlement in an investor suit challenging the compensation of Goldman Sachs Inc.'s non-employee directors, the latest in a string of cases taking a tougher stance on disclosure settlements...

PRNewswire/ -- Alteryx, inc. (AYX), revolutionizing business through data science and analytics, today announced the appointment of Mark Anderson to its board of directors, effective Oct. 1, 2018. Anderson is president of Palo Alto Networks and a seasoned executive with a proven track record of building and scaling organizations for growth...

Ed Breen, the chief executive officer of chemical giant DowDuPont Inc., is the best choice to run DuPont when it becomes an independent company next year, activist investor Dan Loeb said. “I hope Ed Breen is involved in a serious way, continuing as CEO or in an executive chair role,’’ Loeb, who runs the Third Point LLC hedge fund, said in an interview Tuesday...

California is making a big push for more women in the boardroom. On Wednesday, the state legislature passed a bill requiring publicly traded companies to have women on their boards. If Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill into law , California-based companies must have at least one woman on their boards by the end of 2019 or face financial penalties....

Tesla Motors More Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk turned Wall Street on its head when he unexpectedly announced he had the funding required to take the firm private. He was completely serious, and not every member of the company’s board of directors is pleased with the idea. The board has formed a three-person committee and appointed a legal counsel to closely examine any proposal to take Tesla private — if it ever receives one.

(Reuters) - Tesla Inc’s (TSLA.O) handling of Chief Executive Elon Musk's proposal to take the carmaker private and its failure to promptly file a formal disclosure has raised governance concerns and sparked questions about how companies use social media...

I am going to take a deep dive into Glencore Plc’s ( LON:GLEN ) most recent ownership structure, not a frequent subject of discussion among individual investors. Ownership structure has been found to have an impact on shareholder returns in both short- and long-term. Since the same amount of capital coming from an activist institution and a passive mutual fund has different implications on corporate governance, it is a useful exercise to deconstruct GLEN’s shareholder registry...

Dan Loeb’s Third Point has taken a stake in PayPal Holdings Inc. in a vote of confidence for the payments processor as it faces increasing competition from the likes of Amazon.com Inc. The New York-based hedge fund said Paypal stock could reach $125 per share within 18 months on above-consensus earnings, according to an investor letter obtained by Bloomberg...

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has finalized a $30 million whistle-blower award for information that helped the agency sue JPMorgan Chase & Co. for failing to properly inform some wealthy clients about conflicts of interest behind its investment recommendations, according to the private attorney who brought the case...

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich may walk away with $44.5 million after stepping down from the company following revelations that he had breached company policy by engaging in a past consensual relationship with an employee. That’s based on calculations of Krzanich’s severance agreements, disclosed in Intel’s 2017 proxy statement...

Larry Page and Sergey Brin have more than half the voting power. In opposing the plan, the company said in a filing that it won’t "enhance Alphabet’s existing commitment to corporate sustainability," noting that Page collects a salary of just $1. A spokeswoman said the firm had no further comment beyond the statement in the filing. Proxy advisers Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis & Co. are split...

Investors who want to make sure executives deserve the big pay they got in last year’s bull market are set to descend on annual meetings in coming weeks to vote on compensation and elect directors. They’re also set to agitate for strategic moves and ensure companies have a handle on climate change, diversity and cybersecurity...

Average CEO pay at the biggest U.S. companies was up 5 percent in 2017. But increases in executive compensation don't always reflect company performance...

Meet the Woman Who Convinced Apple, Starbucks, and Nike to Close Their Gender Pay Gaps An Equal Pay Day icon. Arjuna Capital managing partner Natasha Lamb has convinced 21 companies to commit to analyzing and closing their gender pay gaps. These include major players in tech (Apple, , Microsoft), finance (J.P. Morgan Chase, , Mastercard), and retail (Amazon, , Starbucks).

I am going to take a deep dive into UMS United Medical Systems International AG’s ( DB:UMS ) most recent ownership structure, not a frequent subject of discussion among individual investors. Ownership structure of a company has been found to affect share performance over time. Since the same amount of capital coming from an activist institution and a passive mutual fund has different implications on corporate governance, it is a useful exercise to deconstruct UMS’s shareholder registry...

More CEO compensation at public companies is staggering and always in the spotlight, and BlackRock ( BLK ) CEO Laurence Fink says CEOs at private companies deserve the same, if not, more attention. Most conversations about executive pay are about public companies, said Fink at the China Development Forum in Beijing this past weekend, which he found harmful...

Tim Manson is the CEO of Property Connect Holdings Limited ( ASX:PCH ), which has recently grown to a market capitalization of AU$2.40M. Understanding how CEOs are incentivised to run and grow their company is an important aspect of investing in a stock. This is because, if incentives are aligned, more value is created for shareholders which directly impacts your returns as an investor...

(Reuters) - Oil and gas producer SandRidge Energy Inc on Monday rejected smaller rival Midstates Petroleum Co Inc's all-stock bid, calling the offer "highly dilutive". However, the company said it had received interest regarding "alternative transactions" from other producers. SandRidge did not provide further details. "Midstates Petroleum continues to believe in the merits of the SandRidge Energy transaction proposed on Feb. 6, 2018...

Longtime Dow Chemical Co. leader Andrew Liveris plans to step down next month, ending a nearly 14-year tenure that culminated with the chemical giant’s combination last year with rival DuPont Co...

Howard Hughes Corp., the master-planned community developer chaired by hedge-fund manager William Ackman, reported strong earnings this week thanks partly to rising prices for developed land in the Houston and Las Vegas regions...

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. cable giant Comcast (CMCSA.O) offered to buy Sky (SKYB.L) for $31 billion in an unsolicited approach, taking on Rupert Murdoch's Fox and Bob Iger's Walt Disney in the battle for Europe's biggest pay-TV group...

Marc Benioff's right-hand man could make another $200,000 after Salesforce finally lets its top execs get raises again (CRM) Julie Bort More Salesforce A year after Salesforce cut CEO Marc Benioff's total pay and froze other top executives' pay to appease shareholder complaints, the company has decided to loosen its purse strings. While Benioff isn't getting a salary bump, several of his top officers are getting raises which impact their salaries and their bonuses...