The SEC just dropped a pretty clear warning to asset managers about collaborating on activist investor campaigns, and it all goes back to that big 2021 showdown at ExxonMobil where climate activists actually managed to shake up the board. Back in 2021, a bunch of investors working through Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) successfully pushed to replace three Exxon board members over how the company was handling climate issues. This was kind of a big moment because it showed that m

Billionaire Makes $20B Disappear - Now You See It, Now You Don't So here's the drama: French billionaire Patrick Drahi is getting sued by some of the biggest names in finance - Apollo Global Management and Oaktree Capital - over how he's handling the mess at his struggling US telecom company, Optimum Communications (formerly Altice USA). Let's just say his restructuring plan has been less "abracadabra" and more "adios, dinero." Optimum has been drowning in over $20 billion of

So, 2026 is turning out to be quite the year for UK takeovers! Foreign buyers are approaching London-listed companies with offers that are pretty hard to turn down - and they're doing it publicly, which puts some friendly pressure on boards to say yes. You could say it's a bit of a grizzly situation for target boards! Here's how it works: a bidder makes an unsolicited public offer at a nice premium (at least 20% above the share price) and goes straight to shareholders instead

So here's what's going on with Voya Financial: this US asset manager that handles about $1.1 trillion in pension and insurance products is getting some heat from an activist hedge fund called Toms Capital Investment Management (TCIM). Basically, TCIM has bought into the company and is now pushing management to think about either selling the whole thing or getting rid of some parts that aren't pulling their weight. The big issue? Voya's got this health insurance arm - the stop

Okay, so this is pretty interesting! Japan just hit the brakes on a big deal where MBK Partners, a huge South Korean private equity firm, was trying to buy Makino Milling - a Japanese machine tools company—for about ¥274 billion (around $1.7 billion). The reason? National security. Makino makes these incredibly precise machines called "mother machines" that are used to build critical stuff like aircraft engine parts. The kicker is that their equipment is widely used by Japane

Here's a pretty slick move happening right now: CapitaLand, this Singaporean property company backed by Temasek, figured out how to deal with its struggling Chinese real estate. They're basically using China's new REIT market to pass their properties off to domestic investors who actually want them. Chinese property has been a disaster for five years: too much supply, prices tanking, developers out of cash. CapitaLand, which owns offices, business parks and malls across China