Peter Cohan, Forbes, February 20, 2015
Could what happened to Clarence Otis happen to you? Otis used to be CEO of Darden Restaurants. In October 2014, Jeff Smith, head of $3 billion Starboard Value, outmaneuvered Otis and Darden’s board in a proxy battle for control. The result was that Starboard replaced Darden’s 12-member board and Otis – all while owning less than 10% of Darden’s shares, according to Fortune. And Darden is hardly alone — CEOs at AOL, Adobe Systems, Apple, PepsiCo, Kraft, and Yahoo are among the leaders who have been forced to deal with activists in recent years. […read more]