Activist Investors Role in the Market — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Activist Investors Role in the Market

Name: Nickolas Ruetz
Major: MSc Business Design and Innovation
Hometown: Racine, WI
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Course project

Abstract

People who make financial investments do it for one reason, because they expect a return. Increasingly companies are expected to not only make high returns, but also do it in a way that has a high degree of corporate responsibility. Shareholder activism is a tactic used by large hedge funds and increasingly by the largest mutual funds. Typically, large hedge fund operators use shareholder activism as a way to influence the board of directors to make some change at a company either financially or within leadership. If the board doesn’t act accordingly the funds will often try to win seats on the board to enact change from within. For mutual funds it is becoming increasingly popular to spend money to enact change in terms of environmental, social, or governance concerns. In 2017, fund managers have invested over $45 billion dollars in campaigns to effect change at companies in their portfolios and the outlook is for growth in years to come.

Poster file