I strongly disagree. When you look at companies, sometimes the boards and management stop acting in the best interest of shareholders. They may be doing this

I strongly disagree. When you look at companies, sometimes the boards and management stop acting in the best interest of shareholders. They may be doing this due to self-serving reasons or incompetence, but it doesn't matter. Activists play an essential role in ensuring companies look out for the best interests of their shareholders. Here's a good quote about some activist investors in a small public company. "He said that the benefits of being public outweighed the costs. He had been at a private company and had worked under pressure from private-equity investors. Public markets, he said, enabled Tejon Ranch to operate under much less short-term pressure, and to take a longer-term perspective. We were flabbergasted: Many companies go private or stay private to avoid the short-term pressure that public markets can create. But the fact is, for companies the size of Tejon Ranch—and there are thousands of them, filling the portfolios of mutual funds and pension funds, even though most investors have never heard their name—Bielli is probably right. Because so many investors are passive today, most CEOs can relax, even if their performance is mediocre." https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-17/activist-fights-and-college-recruiting https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-17/activist-...