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4/29/2029

Shareholder Activism in Asia Drives Global Total to Record High

Nikkei Asia (04/29/29) Shikata, Masayuki

Activist shareholders had their busiest year on record in 2024, with the Asia-Pacific region making up a fifth of campaigns worldwide, pushing some companies higher in the stock market and spurring others to consider going private. The worldwide tally of activist campaigns rose by six to 258, up by half from three years earlier, according to data from financial advisory Lazard. Campaigns in the Asia-Pacific tripled over that period to 57, growing about 30% on the year. Japan accounted for more than 60% of the regional total with 37, an all-time high. Activity is picking up this year as well in the run-up to general shareholders meetings in June. South Korea saw 14 campaigns, a jump of 10 from 2023. Critics say South Korean conglomerates are often controlled by minority investors that care too little about other shareholders. Australia and Hong Kong saw increases of one activist campaign each. North America made up half the global total, down from 60% in 2022 and 85% in 2014. Europe had 62 campaigns last year. The upswing in Japan has been fueled by the push for corporate governance reform since 2013 and the Tokyo Stock Exchange's 2023 call for companies to be more mindful of their share prices. The bourse has encouraged corporations to focus less on share buybacks and dividends than on steps for long-term growth, such as capital spending and the sale of unprofitable businesses. Demands for capital allocation to improve return on investment accounted for 51% of activist activity in Japan last year, significantly higher than the five-year average of 32%. U.S.-based Dalton Investments called on Japanese snack maker Ezaki Glico (2206) to amend its articles of incorporation to allow shareholder returns to be decided by investors as well, not just the board of directors. Though the proposal was rejected, it won more than 40% support, and Glico itself put forward a similar measure that was approved at the following general shareholders meeting in March. U.K.-based Palliser Capital took a stake last year in developer Tokyo Tatemono (8804) and argued that more efficient use of its capital, such as selling a cross-held stake in peer Hulic, would boost corporate value. Activist investors are increasingly seeking to lock in unrealized gains from rising land prices, reaping quick profits from property sales that can go toward dividends. Companies in the Tokyo Stock Exchange's broad Topix index had 25.88 trillion yen ($181 billion at current rates) in unrealized gains on property holdings at the end of March 2024, up about 20% from four years earlier. After buying into Mitsui Fudosan (8801) in 2024, U.S.-based Elliott Investment Management this year took a stake in Sumitomo Realty & Development (8830) and is expected to push for the developer to sell real estate holdings. This month, Dalton sent a letter to Fuji Media Holdings (4676), parent of Fuji Television, calling for it to spin off its real estate business and replace its board of directors. Activist campaigns have sparked share price rallies at some companies. Shares of elevator maker Fujitec (6406) were up roughly 80% from March 2023, when it dismissed Takakazu Uchiyama -- a member of the founding family -- as chairman under pressure from Oasis Management. The rise in demands from activists "creates a sense of tension among management, including at companies that don't receive such proposals," said Masatoshi Kikuchi, chief equity strategist at Mizuho Securities. Previously tight cross-shareholdings are being unwound, and reasonable proposals from minority investors are more likely to garner support from foreign shareholders. Some companies are going private to shield themselves from perceived pressure. Investments by buyout funds targeting mature companies in the Asia-Pacific were the highest in three years in 2024, according to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Toyota Industries (6201) is considering going this route after facing pressure from investment funds last year to take steps such as dissolving a parent-child listing with a subsidiary and buying back more shares. Toyota Industries holds a 9% stake in Toyota Motor (7203). The automaker "may have proposed having [Toyota Industries] go private as a precautionary measure," said a source at an investment bank.

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11/23/2025

Opinion: The Proxy Process Needs an Overhaul

Wall Street Journal (11/23/25) Zecca, John

John Zecca, executive vice president and global chief legal, risk, and regulatory officer of Nasdaq, writes that proxy voting was designed to empower investors by giving them a voice in decisions at the companies they own. Today’s proxy process doesn’t live up to that vision. Instead, it has weakened investor participation, drains company resources and is more a barrier than a bridge to shareholder engagement. The process has undermined the public markets’ core purpose: enabling hardworking Americans to create long-term wealth. At Nasdaq, we have long advocated for reforming the proxy process. We’re encouraged by reports that the Trump administration is considering an executive order to address the issue. A major roadblock is the undue influence of proxy advisory firms on the process. Due to the sheer volume of public companies and proposals, institutional investors—who manage vast portfolios—have come to rely on proxy advisory firms as essential intermediaries. These firms don’t have to disclose or explain the criteria underpinning their voting advice. Nor are they required to correct factual errors in any of their guidance. Proxy advisers don’t have to disclose conflicts of interest, leaving investors and companies in the dark about potential biases that could influence voting recommendations. These dynamics leave crucial decisions in the hands of a few advisory firms that wield disproportionate influence over the trajectory of corporations while operating with minimal accountability. Proxy advisory reform would bring transparency and remove conflicts of interest. We welcome the proposal by Rep. Bryan Steil (R., Wis.) in the Protecting Americans’ Retirement Savings from Politics Act, which would require proxy advisory firms to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and to disclose publicly any conflicts of interest. The proposal also would require proxy advisers to provide companies with a reasonable opportunity to respond to any errors in their voting recommendations. These measures would help rebalance the relationship among proxy advisers, companies and their institutional investors. Another drag on shareholder engagement is the need for companies to use third-party intermediaries in order to communicate with their retail shareholders. These intermediaries have created unnecessary complexity and costs, all while profiting from a monopolistic model that limits a company from communicating directly with its shareholders. In the 2024 proxy season, retail investors voted on only 29.8% of the shares they owned, in part because it’s near-impossible for companies to communicate directly with their shareholders. Companies have little say in selecting these intermediaries; instead, brokers dictate the choice. This lack of autonomy leaves companies unable to manage how they communicate with shareholders, while the billing practices of these intermediaries remain opaque. So far this year, Nasdaq has incurred more than $675,000 in fees for distributing Nasdaq’s annual proxy materials to shareholders. That doesn’t include costs for printing, advisory services or other aspects of the proxy process. Our distribution costs increased by 35% from 2024 to 2025, even as technology has vastly cut the cost of communication. Regulators should push to let companies communicate directly with their shareholders through technology-driven solutions. The blockchain, for instance, could offer a secure channel for communication. Regulators should also encourage competition by letting companies, and not brokers, choose their proxy-distribution firms and negotiate fees for their services. We’re encouraged that policymakers are considering the shareholder proposal process as part of reform efforts. Shareholders should be able to raise concerns with a company, but a small group of activists trying to exert disproportionate influence has corrupted the process. Today, a shareholder, or someone purportedly acting on his behalf with a small stake in a company, can wield outsize influence, drawing on company resources and commanding the time and attention of management, boards and other shareholders. These time-wasting proposals rarely get any support; during the 2024 proxy season, there were 579 shareholder proposals with average support below 25%. We encourage the SEC to revisit the minimum voting thresholds required for a shareholder proposal to be resubmitted in subsequent years to prevent repeat unsuccessful proposals from jamming the process. Public markets remain the most powerful and inclusive engine of wealth creation in the world—fueling innovation, economic growth and opportunity for millions of investors. But the proxy process that underpins shareholder engagement needs modernization. The Trump administration can create a more efficient and fair mechanism that will empower shareholders while strengthening the public markets and supporting the American economy.

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11/19/2025

Commentary: Everyone Calm Down, Hopes the SEC as it Tries a Balancing Act on Proxies

Reuters (11/19/25) Kerber, Ross

A bureaucratic shift by the SEC on proxy resolutions this week drew howls of alarm from reform-minded investors worried that the agency just gutted a key tool for shareholder activism, notes Reuters columnist Ross Kerber in this opinion piece. But there is more to the story, according to a person familiar with the SEC staff's decision. "This person told me that with the changes, the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance tried to strike a delicate balance between protecting shareholder and corporate rights, and staff time," says Kerber. "I couldn't convince this person to go on the record, but it's an intriguing alternative explanation. We will know by next spring who was right." Every year around this time, activists start to file hundreds of proposed resolutions to be voted on at the springtime annual meetings of U.S. companies, often on hot-button issues like workforce diversity and climate change. Traditionally, liberal-leaning groups accounted for most of the measures, although lately many conservative filers have also appeared. Executives dislike many of these resolutions both as distractions and because some of the proposals would have companies pick sides on culture-war topics. But the resolutions have also brought about important changes like the end of staggered boards. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, an appointee of U.S. President Donald Trump, has made no secret of his sympathies for the corporate case against the measures, and the agency has taken other steps to shift power from investors to managers. "That context is why many were alarmed on Monday," suggests Kerber. On that day, the SEC said that for the rest of the current proxy season it would no longer make rulings on common corporate objections to shareholder resolutions, such as whether an activist's proposal was filed late or whether a filer owned enough shares. One critic was the SEC's sole Democratic member, Caroline Crenshaw. In a note, she called the change "a Trojan Horse" that in the cloak of neutrality "effectively creates unqualified permission for companies to silence investor voices." Kerber's source said the real point is that companies themselves now will just have to decide how much they really believe in their own objections to the proposals, which can be as small-potatoes as arguing that a shareholder proposal exceeded a 500-word limit. This person added that companies that know they have a strong case to object will leave resolutions off their proxy ballots, while other companies that are not as confident may decide to be more conservative and include more items. Sanford Lewis, a lawyer who often represents activists, said that in practice, most proponents cannot afford to sue companies that improperly skip their resolutions. Of the SEC's change, he said, "It's not a middle course, it's jettisoning a program and process that was working." The Investment Company Institute, meanwhile, said it is still reviewing the matter. Chris Iacovella, CEO of the American Securities Association, which represents smaller regional firms, said his group "applauds the SEC for taking another important step to depoliticize the shareholder proposal process and lower the cost of being a public company." Tim Schwarzenberger, a portfolio manager for conservative-leaning proposal filer Inspire Investing, said it is too soon to tell the impact of the SEC's change since companies that go too far could be punished by investors in court. Some companies “may decide that early engagement is a safer path than trying to exclude proposals without the protection of SEC staff review," he said.

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11/18/2025

Editorial: The Corporate Proxy Flight from ESG

Wall Street Journal (11/18/25)

The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes that when these columns first began reporting on the misuse of shareholder proxy votes for political causes, the trend looked like a juggernaut. "But only a few years later, we can declare at least a partial victory, which is good news for shareholders and corporate governance," it states. The economic analysts at Unleash Prosperity have been tracking investment votes on corporate proxy proposals for several years, and the trend keeps getting better. In 2022, when it first tracked the votes, most of the largest investment firms danced to the tune of environmental, social and governance proposals. By 2024 most of the firms had taken a notably different approach to ESG. The nearby table shows the latest Unleash Prosperity rating for 40 of the top funds. The grades measure how well the funds determine their proxy votes based on what really matters for corporate governance, which is the growth and profitability of the firm in the interests of maximum return for shareholders. ESG proposals, by contrast, focus on such progressive political priorities as gender or racial preferences, climate change, or divesting from industries that are disfavored by the political left, such as fossil fuels, plastics, or guns. These political biases can steer executives to ignore the main obligation of public companies, which is to make money for the owners, i.e., for shareholders. Unleash Prosperity examined the votes of 600 investment management companies on 50 ESG proposals in the 2024 proxy season. The proxy proposals included adopting racial or gender quotas in hiring, racial-equity audits, and especially the command to pursue net-zero goals in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The climate left had hoped to lock in corporate commitments on ESG that would become a political force to box in politicians. This year 11 funds received an A rating, compared to four in 2022. An A means they voted against woke proposals 90% or more of the time. BlackRock, which had a C in 2022 and was once in the vanguard of ESG voting, has vaulted to an A. This year there are 12 B grades, compared to none in 2022. Why have so many funds changed? One answer is the public exposure that these columns provided in reporting the initial proxy ratings. Some executives said in response that they didn’t even know what their proxy adviser teams were doing. The public attention drew political interest from Republican state Attorneys General, who questioned whether their state pension funds should use these investment advisers. The general political environment has also shifted with Donald Trump’s re-election. The pressure from post-George Floyd and Biden-era political intimidation on behalf of progressive causes has ebbed. As the nearby table shows, some firms are still bowing to the ESG lobby. Six firms received a D rating, including Guggenheim Funds, Franklin Templeton and Morgan Stanley. The four that received an F or F- are Victory Funds, Allspring Funds, DWS Funds, and Pimco. When these funds vote your shares, they are taking dictation from the ESG lobby, or the proxy adviser duopoly of Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS). As it happens, one half of that duopoly is also stepping back from recommending votes for woke proxy proposals. Glass Lewis’s CEO Bob Mann said in October that “It’s clear that clients in the U.S. are moving. If that’s because the politics of the space is changing, so be it.” He is reading politics in the room. The Trump Administration recently floated to the press that it is considering an executive order that would restrict the power of Glass Lewis and ISS. The two firms control about 90% of the proxy adviser market. Depending on the details, this could be welcome news for companies and shareholders. Legislation from Congress would be even better. With government having so much power these days, political fads too often capture business leaders who don’t want to risk bad publicity. ESG and DEI are two of the most recent examples, and don’t forget “stakeholder capitalism.” "Smart CEOs keep their eyes on the North Star of maximizing returns to shareholders, which is the best way to help customers, employees, and the larger society," the editorial concludes.

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11/17/2025

Opinion; Paul Singer’s Hedge Fund Is Playing for Higher Stakes Now

Bloomberg (11/17/25) Hughes, Chris

Bloomberg Opinion columnist Chris Hughes writes that Elliott Management Corp. is facing a growing challenge: size. The $76 billion fund, arguably the most famous name in shareholder activism, is getting bigger. So are its targets. Now, where are the gains? Paul Singer’s firm is being humbled by the runaway performance of the S&P 500. The same goes for many active asset managers. Returns since 1994 haven’t beaten the index, the Financial Times reported last week, citing Elliott’s latest investor letter. Singer, meanwhile, considered the idea that size might constrain performance, as he has on previous occasions. He concluded no — also not for the first time. Comparisons with the leading U.S. investment benchmark are a bit off. Investors hand money to hedge funds like Elliott often because they want performance that doesn’t correlate with the equity market. The idea is to secure strong absolute returns, with less volatility than stocks and insulation from a crash. Still, the size question has to be constantly reassessed. Elliott’s reported nine-month performance to September of about 5% is hardly stellar. Activism is a major piston within Elliott’s multi-strategy engine. "A large activist fund must either make more bets on small- to mid-sized companies (the conventional hunting ground) or find heftier targets where it can deploy more capital," Hughes notes. "Going after lots more deals risks diluting the quality of opportunities. How many good ideas can one firm have? As for engaging big companies, there are fewer to choose from. Mega-caps have more analyst coverage and supposedly superior management, in theory making discount valuations less likely. Forcing a sale, a lucrative activist strategy, isn’t an option when a company is too huge to buy. In fact, size should be no bar to successful activism. It does, however, put the hedge fund in a higher-stakes game." The mega-cap world clearly represents fertile territory. Regardless of theory, large companies don’t necessarily have better managers than smaller ones. Protection from takeover means executives often let things slide. The cost base can become bloated, or a company can sustain a needless conglomerate structure. That’s an opportunity. Get a super-tanker to change tack and be revalued by the wider market, and serious gains ought to follow. Usually the way forward is obvious: Analysts often call for the very asset sales, spin-offs or raised profit targets that the activist would demand. Bankers have probably been telling the company to do these things preemptively. The likely obstacle is that corporate bosses making strategic U-turns lose face. So the external force of shareholder pressure is needed. An activist with a chunky stake, credibility and sound arguments ought to be able to pull the other active fund managers (also having to justify their fees) behind their plan. What are the risks? It can still take time for the strategy to pay off, and that can be painful when the rest of the stock market is going up. Companies get engaged by activists because their share prices are languishing. A hedge fund activist may simultaneously short sell the firm’s peers or a wider basket of shares. That way the fund is exposed only to the relative performance of the target stock. If the company continues to drift while the market goes up, it’s painful for the hedge fund. But when the stock finally outperforms… bonanza. A high-profile campaign carries greater reputational stakes, too. Any failure is going to be that much more visible. "Perhaps it’s better to see big-game hunting as a rewarding but slightly riskier strategy where mistakes may mean more," concludes Hughes. "As with short selling, you have to be right, and you need endurance. Hedge funds should be judged only on what they promise clients, not by the S&P 500. If Elliott can’t perform better in choppier markets, Singer will have some real explaining to do."

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11/17/2025

Japanese Ink Maker Sells Off Monet, Renoir Paintings as Activists Circle

Bloomberg (11/17/25) Taniguchi, Takako

Facing more pressure from activist investors to increase returns, one Japanese company is turning to its art holdings, selling off paintings by the likes of Monet and Renoir. DIC Corp. (4631), an ink and resin maker, has a well-known collection of art and it opened a museum near Tokyo in 1990 to house the works. But Oasis Management Co., DIC’s second-largest shareholder, has called on the company to sell off its holdings, saying that paintings aren’t part of the firm’s core business and they’ve weighed on its stock performance. Some of its artwork is very valuable, such as Claude Monet’s 1907 masterpiece “Nymphéas,” which could sell for $40 million to $60 million, according to Christie’s. DIC also plans to auction seven more paintings, including works by Marc Chagall and Pierre-Auguste Renoir in the auction house’s Monday sale. Many Japanese companies have been selling physical assets on their balance sheet like real estate to generate profits to bolster their income statements. DIC's sale of its art collection may do the same. The moves are in line with efforts by the government and the exchange to increase stockholder value and attract global investors. Activists have joined this drive and pushed for changes in management, investment or business focus — at this year's annual shareholder meetings, activists submitted a record numbers of proposals. DIC also closed its Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art in March and plans to reopen a smaller facility in Roppongi, Tokyo, around 2030 or later. It is looking to display in the new museum its seven paintings by Mark Rothko — the famed 20th century abstract artist known for works showing fuzzy and luminous rectangular color fields. Oasis Management's founder and chief investment officer, Seth Fischer, has opposed building a new museum featuring the Rothko paintings. “That's like creating the world's most expensive meditation room,” he said. It's “an inappropriate use of corporate assets.” DIC, an abbreviation of the company's previous name Dainippon Ink & Chemicals Inc., has said it plans to sell about three-quarters of its 384-piece art collection. President Takashi Ikeda indicated in March that the company would keep Nymphéas, along with the seven Rothko paintings. The positive corporate image built by displaying fine art over decades in a museum “can't be easily replaced,” he said. Asked about the company's decision to sell the Monet painting after all, a DIC spokesperson said that while the water lily piece is one of the representative works in the company's collection, considering its responsibilities as both a business entity and an art holder, the firm decided to take it out of its collection. If all eight pieces at the Christie's auction are sold at the top of their estimates, that would raise about $104 million. That would represent about 75% of DIC's net income last year of ¥21.3 billion ($138 million). Even if all eight works are sold at the bottom of their estimates, that would total about ¥10.9 billion, exceeding DIC's goal of generating about ¥10 billion in cash by the end of 2025 through the initial sale of around 20 art pieces. Auction results are difficult to predict though, and Monday's sale isn't currently factored into this fiscal year's earnings forecast. Many major Japanese companies have art collections and museums. But the collections tend to be in foundations that keep them out of reach of sellers. Nana Otsuki, Senior Fellow at Pictet Japan and a member of an expert panel on national museum operations, said that storage facilities in the country's public museums are nearing capacity. Using digital tokens to establish ownership rights to artwork may be one way to protect private collections, Otsuki said. “Corporate support for the arts is meaningful, and leveraging private sector power is essential,” she said.

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11/14/2025

Commentary: Loeb Says Activism Without Proxy Fights Is Like ‘Catholicism Without Hell

Australian Financial Review (11/14/25) Macdonald, Anthony

Dan Loeb is older, wiser, and changed when it comes to the types of companies he engages and how he goes about it. He’s friendlier, more constructive and much less public in his campaigns, he says. He’s chasing bigger targets — a necessity when you’re running much more money — is more focused on capital allocation and reckons he’s even welcomed by CEOs who may need an outsider to nudge a reluctant board. “They actually encourage us to write the letter,” he says. Loeb says he has discovered that this activism — a less public version — can be very influential. He says he’s getting traction by going after companies’ margins, expenditure and strategies, making the scathing letters and public campaigns much less common. “What we do is mostly behind the scenes,” the headline act at this year’s Sohn Hearts & Minds conference said on Friday. It struck us as a maturing of a Wall Street spear thrower. But there’s one part of the activist toolkit he says he will never put away: the proxy fight. “Corporations without bankruptcy [are] like Catholicism without hell,” he said. “I’d say the same thing about activism. “Activism without the potential of a proxy contest doesn’t work, so we keep that in our back pocket, our little trade secret.” So, Loeb says he’s firing in these proxy requests, but now often quietly. He cites new Domain-owner CoStar as an example — no one knew there was an activism campaign under way until the company announced a standstill between Third Point and DE Shaw and two new directors for its board. Loeb’s letters are the stuff of investing legend; they were often personal, aimed at specific directors or executives, and used colorful language including “CVD” or chief value destroyer and “LSC” or “lucky sperm club." It’s interesting because what happens on Wall Street eventually makes its way into Australian capital markets. Bankers for years have told us to expect large-scale activism and although it didn’t really come — except Grok’s run against AGL Energy’s demerger and board, which was unlike anything seen in this market since – there’s plenty of behind-closed-doors activism bubbling away. What we haven’t seen — and why we’d argue Australian directors don’t realie how good they’ve got it — is a proper proxy fight complete with boardroom change. The closest we have is James Hardie, where a stunning three directors, including the chair, were not re-elected at last month’s annual general meeting. Investors are suggesting replacements, though it remains to be seen whether they get their way, too. Loeb’s address was the highlight of a full day of stock pitches and thematic panels at Sohn. The organizers kept Loeb until after lunch, and he didn’t disappoint. He gave a pretty upbeat view of the U.S. economy and even the AI sector, saying there was a bubble but at the neocloud/provider level.

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11/14/2025

Japan’s Takaichi Says Companies Focus Too Much on Shareholders

Bloomberg (11/14/25) Murakami, Sakura; French, Alice

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi blamed companies for focusing too much on shareholders and not enough on raising wages in comments that might unsettle investors who’ve helped drive Tokyo stocks to record highs this year. “I think there has been a trend of too much focus on shareholders. I will revise the corporate governance code to encourage companies to appropriately distribute resources not just to shareholders but to employees,” she said Friday in response to questions in parliament that raised the issue of how to increase the labor share of income. While underscoring Takaichi’s push for companies to keep raising wages at a time when inflation continues to eat into household incomes, the comments also appear to signal a deviation from the policies touted by her mentor Shinzo Abe. As prime minister, Abe promoted a new corporate governance code designed to encourage companies to engage more seriously with investors and respect minority shareholders’ rights. The introduction of the code in 2015 effectively ushered in a period of government support for corporate reform that over the years has added billions of dollars to the market, lured activists and driven a surge in deal-making in Japan. In one of the latest iterations of that direction, in 2023 the Tokyo Stock Exchange started a campaign to highlight companies that had taken steps to raise their stock price, putting pressure on those that hadn’t. Companies’ efforts to boost their capital efficiency have drawn record numbers of activist investors to Japan’s market — they bought over $6.6 billion worth of Japanese stocks in 2024. Japan saw the second-largest number of activist campaigns after the U.S. last year. Takaichi’s comments unexpectedly dampen investor expectations that she may double down on Abe’s shareholder friendly approach. “Foreign investors who favor shareholder primacy may take these comments to mean that Japan’s corporate governance reforms are backsliding,” said Jumpei Tanaka, head of investment strategy at Pictet Asset Management Japan. “That’s far from good news,” he added. Last month, a government-led panel debating the revision of the corporate governance code kicked off just as Takaichi became Japan’s new leader. One of the expert members of the panel pointed out that while shareholder returns have greatly improved in the past decade, growth in wages and capital expenditure has remained limited. Still, another member called for a strong focus on return on equity, suggesting opinions are divided. Takaichi added Friday that she considered the excessive hoarding of capital by firms to be a problem, and said she wanted companies to effectively use it to invest in people including through wage hikes. Japan’s corporate retained earnings stood at ¥630 trillion ($4.1 trillion) in the quarter ended June according to Finance Ministry data — an amount that’s larger than the nominal economy for the year ended March. “I would like to see firms conduct business not just thinking about clients, but also considering their contribution to the broader society,” she added. Japan’s nominal wages have continued to rise, but have consistently lagged behind price gains. With real wages mostly falling for the past three and a half years as inflation jumped up, Takaichi is likely conscious of the fact that voter frustration over inflation has contributed to the fall of two of her predecessors. The broader situation leaves businesses disjointed over what they should be doing, according to Kazuhiro Sasaki, head of research at Phillip Securities Japan Ltd. “From the perspective of companies, they might be asking ‘do we look toward the government’s direction, or do we look toward investors?” he said. “It’s tough to navigate unless there’s some logical cohesion.”

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11/14/2025

Third Point’s Loeb Leads Bullish Investors Despite Stock Slump

Australian Financial Review (11/14/25) Shapiro, Jonathan

Major investors say the global economy is strong enough to withstand a bubble in artificial intelligence and turmoil in private credit markets despite a sharp fall on Wall Street and the ASX over the past week. The local sharemarket tumbled to a four-month low on Friday as investors erased $37 billion in value on concerns that interest rates in the US and Australia were falling any time soon. Despite the slump, Dan Loeb said he was “generally optimistic” about the outlook for equities. “It doesn’t mean that we won’t have some ugly days and weeks along the way. That’s what makes a market, but I’m pretty constructive,” Loeb, who co-founded high-powered New York investment firm Third Point, told fund managers at the Sohn Hearts & Minds conference in Sydney on Friday. Loeb also said he wasn’t worried about the Federal Reserve’s moves as hopes of a December rate cut faded. “The Fed has told you that they’re not going to lower rates, which they would do if they saw some signs of weakness. The first half of next year, I expect to be pretty strong,” he said. A growing number of Federal Reserve officials this week have signaled hesitation about more interest rate cuts. Bond traders have subsequently lowered the odds of a December rate cut to nearly 50%, from 63% a day earlier and 95% a month ago. “The market was far too optimistic about what the Fed could deliver, which has generated high valuations at a time when tech now has a very symbiotic relationship with surrounding industries,” said Perpetual head of investment strategy Matt Sherwood. “The upcoming data deluge in the next few weeks could alter ... the justification for extreme valuations.” Wall Street fell as worries about stretched valuations for AI and other technology stocks have grown, particularly given the US government shutdown has deprived investors of key economic data. That shutdown has ended this week after 43 days, although the economic indicators remain delayed. Loeb is one major investor who believes there is a bubble in technology stocks, but told the conference it was not “at Microsoft or Amazon." Instead, he said speculative capital had flown into smaller stocks in the sector. “We saw inexplicable valuations around companies like [cloud computing infrastructure operator] CoreWeave (CRWV),” he said. “The more mainstream companies didn’t go up as much, nor do I think they’ll correct as much.” His comments come amid broader concerns that the Federal Reserve will stop lowering interest rates, forcing investors to reconsider whether risky assets would get a boost from cheaper money. The S&P500 index slid 1.7% during Thursday’s session while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 2.29% after central bank officials cast doubt that policy rates would be lowered when they meet in December. Nvidia (NVDA), the focus of much of the interest in AI-related stocks, fell more than 4% as the US sell-off dragged Australia’s benchmark share market lower. Still, doubts about excessive valuations and persistently higher rates have slowed a sharemarket rally that was on track to repeat the near 2% rise last year. Australia’s benchmark index had gained as much as 10% but has given back half of those gains over the past month. London-based hedge fund manager Michael Hintze, speaking at the conference, said he also believed that the market’s largest stocks were not overvalued based on the earnings growth they were delivering. “A $US5 trillion ($7.7 trillion) company looking cheap to me. It’s bizarre,” Hintze, who was raised in Australia, said about Nvidia. The company is expected to grow its profits by 35% over the next 12 months. Beyond the potential for a bubble in AI valuations, investors are worried about problems in fast-growing credit markets. High-yield credit spreads — which measure the compensation investors are prepared to accept — has narrowed to the lowest levels since the global financial crisis. Meanwhile, failures are ticking up in the private credit markets as high-profile defaults and write-offs have rattled confidence in the $US1.5 trillion market. Still, Loeb was also upbeat about the growth of private credit, which has concerned regulators around the world, including the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. “Everybody’s focused on some of these scary headlines about frauds and mis-markings and some of the canaries in the coal mine in the credit market,” Loeb said. “But I don’t think it’s going to be systemic. I’m glad we have another trillion-and-a-half-dollar [funding] market.”

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