Predict, prepare for and manage an activist engagement

Our team proactively evaluates companies’ vulnerability to potential activist engagement and works with clients to rapidly identify and execute performance improvements to prevent and/or prepare for an activist approach.

Once targeted by an activist, senior management and the board will find themselves expending significant time and money managing the resulting challenges and publicity. Ultimately, delivering value to shareholders hinges on their ability to manage the added complexity of an activist engagement. A&M delivers a robust and tactical playbook for value creation, communications and management throughout an activist campaign.

Clients call us when:

• Board members and management teams want to understand how vulnerable they are to an activist approach.
• An activist takes a material stake in the company and the board needs guidance on how to proceed.
• The threat of activist investors, prompts management to understand and address competitive gaps and other vulnerabilities.
• They want independent operational insight on their activist response.
• They need a detailed playbook showing the actions they should take to improve performance and shareholder returns.

Our services include:

• Advisory Services
  • Outside-In Evaluation: Conduct third-party analysis, from the shareholder perspective, of a company’s performance to help pre-arm management teams and / or boards against activist approaches.
  • Strategic Advisory: Provide independent analysis of value levers and actions, staging and resourcing to drive returns and directly address activist’s assertions.
  • Transformation Execution: Lead a robust transformation program to deliver measurable benefits in a timeframe that meets investors’ expectations.
  • Advocacy: Manage agency conflicts and stress testing of assumptions to protect the company’s best interest.
  • Corporate Finance Assessment: Evaluate capital allocation, illuminate areas of optimization and provide transaction referrals for M&A work, share buybacks and debt issuance.
  • Capital Markets Scenario Analysis: Analyze and stress test the magnitude, staging and timing of improvements in operating performance to inform the view of capital market responses to various scenarios.
  • Governance: Employ best practices to drive shareholder approvals for management’s strategic initiatives; Conduct a review of corporate governance and board composition.
  • Project Management: Combine strategy, process, change management and activism expertise to support efficiency and effectiveness, mitigating the burden on leadership.
• Activist Campaign Management
  • Strategy and Operations Playbook: Deliver a robust and tactical playbook to relevant stakeholders while leading management and boards through the challenges of an activist campaign and proxy fight.
  • Tailored Communications: Design and control the narrative. Develop communications with thematic consistency, integrity and contextual relevancy including:
    • Settlement Discussion Scripts
    • Fight Decks
    • Fight Letters
    • Earnings Scripts and Press Releases
    • Internal Meetings
  • Stakeholder Alignment: Proactively manage and communicate with key stakeholders to support alignment around a shared reality. Prepare for Proxy Advisory meetings (ISS / Glass Lewis) as well as meetings and presentations to other large institutional shareholders.