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Fortune

Bill George

Have Activist Investors Finally Lost Their Luster?

DuPont Andrew Liveris Carl Icahn Nelson Peltz Bill Ackman Dow Kraft Loeb Mondelez America

CNBC Events - Season 2014 (Credit: Photograph by Heidi Gutman — NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Through 2014 and 2015, the activist investor movement was picking up steam. Corporate boards were running for cover or capitulating to activist demands before they got into proxy fights. The media heaped adulation on activist investors. Bill Ackman graced the cover of Forbes with the moniker “Baby Buffett.”

Vanguard targeted stocks additional 6.1%Rise of the Activists200 American companies win rate replaced their CEOsGeneral Electric DuPont Dow eBay Microsoft Apple $140 billion hard-fought proxy contest to DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman merge DuPont with Dow BASF €1.88 billion AIGWither the Activist Movement?“Investing King”Hertz 43% and 39%,PepsiCo HeinzThe Real Activist Strategy and Resultsabandonment of investments in long-term initiatives like research and development 113%Pushing BackWall Street JournalBlackRockBill George is Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School, former Chairman & CEO of Medtronic, and author of

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