M - I - C - K - E - Y...

Activist investors have been busy as of late. One example of this activity involves Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management resuming its proxy battle with Disney's board. In the below video, Patrick Gadson, Co-Chair of Shareholder Activism Practice for Vinson & Elkinsm, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss that deal.

Gadson reports: “For Disney, this is second-wave activism...the sequel the board didn’t want.” He continues: “Undervaluations always drive shareholder activism and we’ve seen a lot of that over the last few years, but we’re actually not seeing more shareholder activism exponentially. We’re seeing pretty stable growth in the asset class year-over-year. It’s just we're seeing very name brand or collection of name brands...activism happening in the public space.”

This activist situation is notable because, as Gadson states: “Disney in a way is special...it’s not very frequent that you see shareholder activism at a huge, brand-name, Americana company happen in back-to-back years.”

#activism