00:00John would you agree is that the tension of today's market. Yeah absolutely. I think the other thing to think
00:04about is you saw in the data it didn't reduce activism as you might have expected.
00:10But it does impact the M&A market. Right. And most activist platforms historically are focused on pushing for some
00:17kind of event driven sale of the company launch a strategic review or even seeing activists launch bids themselves.
00:23That is harder as you heard on the last segment when M&A markets are less robust financing markets are
00:30challenged. But it doesn't mean there's less activism.
00:33It just means either people are being patient or they're pushing for other things whether it's capital allocation operational change
00:40or going after CEOs.
00:41And what's the line between engaging as Elizabeth was was laying out but also not caving in too quickly.
00:46Yeah I think that's that's a really important point for boards and management to consider it's you know engagement is
00:52definitely the buzzword and I think in the past you saw companies not engage give activists the Heisman that was
00:59a mistake.
00:59But there's been an over rotation I think between you know from engagement to capitulation and it's just not necessary
01:08companies ultimately are fiduciaries to all shareholders they're not agents of the loudest shareholder the most obnoxious shareholder you've got
01:15to do what's best for the company.
01:16And as Elizabeth said look it's you've got to listen if you if you get good ideas from an activist
01:22or someone else you should take those ideas but ultimately companies should do what's best and I think they over
01:27indexed a little bit on how good activists how you know are at proxy fights how successful they can be.
01:33They're actually really not that experienced in these contests because I think as your data would show there's just not
01:39that many contests and so companies I think should just keep that in mind.
01:41Sean I would love to get your opinion on this to kind of the range of activists that we've seen.
01:47Yeah I mean I would say half full half of the activists we dealt with in the last quarter were
01:53not Elliot or policy or they were family offices individual billionaires just long only institutional investors but using the same
02:03advisors using the same tactics as activists and as Elizabeth said like if some of them are super sophisticated and
02:10you can treat them the same.
02:11The same way others aren't but they're more unpredictable because you don't they don't have a track record they may
02:17have totally idiosyncratic interests and goals which makes it much harder for the company and its advisers to plan.
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