do activist investors create value 
activist investors have been effective at times in addressing the agency problem faced by shareholders whose interests don t always coincide with those of entrenched management teams they ve certainly created value for themselves and other shareholders activist investing can t easily be pigeonholed as good or bad however activist investors look out for themselves and realize the lion s share of the value they unlock their relatively short term focus on strategies likely to lift the share price such as return of capital to shareholders in the form of dividends or share buybacks can prevent companies from making needed long term investments 23