Jim Carlson

Ethan Allen, Hedge Fund Activism and Prevailing Over Conventional Advice and Practice

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Ethan Allen and its management prevailed a few weeks ago against an intense hedge fund activist campaign to remove its entire board of directors.

An analyst of one of our larger shareholders, the Gabelli funds, observed “I’ve never seen a company mount a better campaign against an activist investor than Ethan Allen did… Farooq Kathwari did a good job of implementing their strategy and tactics, to the point where people might study this as an example of how management can push back against an activist investor.” To explain, the Ethan Allen management and board directly engaged and listened to our … Read more

Why Don’t The Lawyers Learn What Investors Are Taught?

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In December 2013, the SEC at the direction of Congress under the JOBS Act dutifully provided an initial SEC staff report addressing securities disclosure requirements for public companies to question whether the SEC’s detailed disclosure mandates for public company disclosure might be improved or simplified for the benefit of investors. In late 2014, the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance sought lawyerly input, and heading into 2015, the SEC is methodically continuing this project, seeking comments and reviewing their own rules internally. Before plodding towards even more disclosure minutia read only by lawyers, we might question, is any of this carefully … Read more