by Daniel Keum Are activist investors the villains? In the movie “Pretty Woman (1990),” Richard Gere plays a corporate raider who takes over a struggling shipping company. The climax of the movie is when Gere’s character punches his colleague and old-time friend Phillip Stuckey in the face (played by Jason Alexander), decides not to break up the company into pieces, and rides into the sunset with Julia Roberts who plays a “hooker with a heart of gold.” Kaul, Nary, and Singh (2018) and Chen and Feldman (forthcoming) present careful analyses that take the magic away from this classic rom-com. Activist … Continue reading Are Activist Investors the Villains?