2015苏州大学考研英语：投资人及治理公司Corporate Governance.docxVIP

BusinessCorporate GovernanceAnything you can do, Icahn do betterThe pressure on companies from activist shareholders continues to growTIM COOKS nightmare is over, but John Donahoes has just begun.On February 10th Carl Icahn, the godfather of activist shareholders, ended his campaign to get Mr Cook, the boss of Apple, to return some of its 160 billion cash mountain to shareholders through share buy-backs.Mr Icahn declared victory, although Apple is not handing back as much of its cash as he had wanted.His next target is eBay, which he is pressuring to spin off PayPal, its online-payments business.Mr Donahoe, eBays boss, has told Mr Icahn to get lost, but surely knows he cannot brush off the pugilistic investor so easily.A visit from an activist shareholder is now a possibility for any publicly traded company:if not the 77-year-old Mr Icahn, then one of the growing army of younger imitators he has inspired.Mr Cook was first put under pressure to stop hoarding cash last year by David Einhorn, boss of Greenlight Capital, a hedge fund.Having shaken up Yahoos management and strategy in 2012, Dan Loeb and his fund, Third Point, have turned their attention to Sony, calling for it to separate its electronics and entertainment arms; to Sothebys, an auction house they want to repurchase shares; and to Dow Chemical, which they want to shed its petrochemicals business.Nelson Peltz, who has been a shareholder activist almost as long as Mr Icahn, last month joined the board of Mondelez, a snacks business he had targeted.TCI, a London-based fund run by Chris Hohn, has rediscovered its activist mojo after having been badly hurt by the financial crisis.Last year it urged EADS to sell its military-planes business, and took on the management of Japan Tobacco.Steve Ballmer was helped on his way out of Microsofts top job by ValueAct Capital, run by Mason Morfit.Last month Bill AckmansPershing Squaremade a tasty profit when Suntory acquired Beam, which had been spun out of Fortune Brands