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Public Pension Funds As Shareholder Activists: A Comment On Choi And Fisch, Randall Thomas

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The world of shareholder activism has expanded dramatically over the past twenty years so that it now contains a broad set of actors carrying on a wide range of activities. At one end of the spectrum, hedge fund activist shareholders have taken large investment positions in targeted companies and spent significant amounts of money lobbying aggressively for a host of structural changes at these corporations. At a more intermediate level of activism are the labor union pension funds. The union funds have been active, making innovative uses of the federal securities laws to get shareholder proposals on corporate ballots and …