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The credit crisis may have just claimed its latest casualty: the so-called activist shareholder.
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The activist movement — a rebranding of the old corporate-raider moniker — has created a new breed of celebrity investor, offering public platforms for the likes of Bill Ackman of Pershing Square and even Richard C. Breeden, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has taken up the activist cause; his hedge fund successfully pressed Applebee’s International to be sold, and he is about to be elected to the board of H & R Block after campaigning against the management there. And then there is Pirate Capital, a hedge fund whose name says it all.
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