Traditional active managers turn activist in 2019

37% of the demands have been successful

Active fund managers launched 55 public demands in 2019, up from 35 in 2018, according to new research.

This represented a 57% increase in activist demands launched by conventional active managers last year, communications consultancy Headland found. Five years ago, they launched just 13 activist demands. The research by Headland, based on examining UK markets data from Activist Insight, revealed that over the past ten years active managers have launched 147 governance-related campaigns - more than their pure play activist counterparts, which launched 117. Two other key demand groups - taking balance sheet action and changing the business strategy - were given broadly equal preference i...