Friction #5: The rise and rise of the activist investor

Five years ago, IT services giant Cognizant was coasting. Growth in the previous decade had been heady as Nasdaq-listed Cognizant went past erstwhile market leaders like Infosys Ltd and Wipro Ltd to become the favoured stock of investors. A speedbreaker appeared when the company found itself at odds with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the capital markets regulator in the US, under the The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and was forced to settle charges. 

While that may have been a blip, it was swiftly followed by another assault, this time from Elliott Management Corp., which bought a 4% stake in …

Author

Sundeep Khanna

Sundeep Khanna has, in a career spanning three decades, donned multiple hats across corporate and editorial roles, and is one of the foremost chroniclers of business in India. In his last assignment, he was executive editor of the financial daily Mint; for The Morning Context, he will write on corporate governance in India every fortnight in his newsletter, Friction.

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