Game of unknowns for businesses in 2016
- By Nuno Fernandes
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, February 19, 2016
As Game of Thrones fans know, "winter is coming" in the new episodes slated for 2016, and with it a season of uncertainty. The outlook for the show's Seven Kingdoms of Westeros is very similar to that of the current world economy and a lot of big questions remain as we ring in the New Year.
Will Europe get its act together and finally grow? Are activist investors going to continue to dominate? Will mergers and acquisitions lead to success or failure? Are unicorns on the road to extinction?
Here are my main predictions for 2016:
Activists on the rise
In 2015 hundreds of companies worldwide, like General Motors, Dow Chemical, Nestlé, Xerox or Mondelez, were subject to so-called activist investors.
This trend will continue in 2016.
Shareholder activists often purchase minority shares of publicly listed companies, arguing that the companies are mismanaged, and propose ideas to enhance shareholder value. They later sell their shares at a higher price. The firms that activists target tend to underperform relative to their industry. Due to their hostile approaches to short-term profit making, they are perceived negatively as "corporate raiders," "green mailers" or "asset strippers".
Today, there are at least 10 activist funds managing over US$10 billion each. They use their firepower to influence the performance or governance of publicly-traded companies. And their focuses are varied: core business, excessive cash holdings, need for optimization, mergers, capital structure reorganizations, spin-offs of parts of businesses and so on. In addition to their own shareholdings, these funds typically receive the support of many institutional investors (mutual funds, pension funds, and asset managers) in their initiatives.
Activists will continue to have major influence in the coming year. This is welcome news for all other investors, as it helps unlock shareholder value. Despite criticism, the empirical evidence is clear: share prices and operating performance at the targeted companies often improve after activist involvement. "If every company were well managed, there would be no reason for activists," said Warren Buffett. "The truth is, at some companies, the managers forget who they're working for."
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