James Surowiecki Quotes

Good shareholder activists have incredible interest in the company because they own a lot of it.

Taking the company private was not the easiest thing I've done in my life.

In the 1980s, corporate raiders began mounting unfriendly takeovers of companies that could deliver higher returns to their shareholders - if they abandoned their other stakeholders.

Carl Icahn, corporate raider by trade, is creative, a scrambler, and certainly not to be underestimated.

When the value of the company clearly has fallen below what its assets are worth, having a shareholder who says, 'Let's get a better board' can be helpful.

It is much more convenient not to be a public company. As a private company you don't have to give information to the public. Secrecy is an important factor of success in the commodity business.

Regarding our links with the Russian government, Severstal is a private company with no government participation. We are answerable to our shareholders.

Fortunately we're not a public company - we're a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.

Self-dealing, essentially, occurs when managers run companies to line their own pockets instead of those of the companies' owners. It's been a perennial problem in American capitalism and became a real dilemma when America moved toward a model in which corporations would be run by professional managers who had only small ownership stakes.

Companies that are publicly held have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to try to maximize their profits within ethical reasons.

Our laws demand that a corporation have a fiduciary responsibility with shareholders to maximize profits. They are legally required to make as much money as possible, any way possible within 'the law.'

Yahoo would benefit from going private or becoming part of a larger corporation.

Well-managed companies with independent boards have nothing to fear from activist shareholders.

The vast majority of companies don't go public and mint dozens of millionaires. And most companies don't go around doling out stock options; private companies tend to be very tight about ownership.

Our responsibility is to maximise shareholder value, and if that means we can make short-term investment where we can maximise short-term value, we can do that.

HCL and Wipro are largely controlled by one family, so a strife with the board is not possible.

I have to look out for the shareholder’s interests, and I’m the largest shareholder.

I have not been a believer of point guidance. It really limits your flexibility to do what you want. It leads to behavior that is not supportive of long-term shareholder value.

I wish we could be private with Tesla. It actually makes us less efficient to be a public company.

My obligation is to disclose companies in which I'm an officer, a director, or an investor.

When you manage your company for long-term shareholders, and you manage the company for clients, two of the biggest stakeholders, you will make the right decisions.

Activist shareholder resolutions do not have to pass to succeed. The process itself can be so injurious to a company that management will cave to demands.

No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.

When companies are private, founders can share more about their future dreams with investors; report less; and the shares are illiquid, constraining short-term changes in valuation.

Mergers and acquisitions, we are always looking for that.