The New Age of Shareholder Activism
2022 was a record year for shareholder activism and 2023 continues to see numerous activism campaigns at companies of all sizes and life cycles across industry sectors. Please join us for a conversation with Sabastian Niles, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Sabastian is a leading activism and takeover defense counsel and strategist for companies around the world. Sabastian will provide his views on how companies can prepare for, get ahead of and defend against activist investors by playing offense.
Questions can be submitted before and during the session. Please note that this call is considered off the record and will not be available to be shared as a recording.
Speakers
Thursday, Apr. 6
Space is limited. This invite is personal and non-transferable.
Sabastian V. Niles is a Partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz where he focuses on rapid response shareholder and stakeholder activism, proxy fights and preparedness, takeover defense and corporate governance; risk oversight, including as to ESG, cybersecurity and crisis situations; U.S. and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, buyouts, investments, divestitures and strategic partnerships; and other corporate and securities law matters and special situations.
Sabastian advises worldwide and across industries, including technology, financial institutions, media, energy and natural resources, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, construction and manufacturing, real estate/REITs and consumer goods and retail.
Sabastian has been recognized repeatedly by Chambers USA as one of the highest-ranked Corporate/M&A Takeover Defense attorneys (with clients noting: “His care of the company is extraordinary”), by Lawdragon as a leading U.S. dealmaker and as a BTI Client Service All-Star. Sabastian is an elected Fellow of the American College of Governance Counsel (where he served as Co-Chair of the 2021 “ESG and the Boardroom” masterclass program). He is also a member of the Harvard Association of Law and Business Advisory Board and the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance Advisory Board at the University of Delaware.
He has counseled boards of directors and management teams on self-assessments, engagement with institutional investors and proxy advisory firms and navigating activist situations involving Paul Singer/Jesse Cohn/Jeff Rosenbaum/Elliott Management, Jeff Smith/Peter Feld/Starboard Value, Bill Ackman/Pershing Square, Barry Rosenstein/JANA Partners, Carl Icahn, Daniel Loeb/Third Point, Scott Ferguson/Sachem Head, Arnaud Ajdler/Engine Capital, David Einhorn/Greenlight Capital, Glenn Welling/Engaged Capital, Jeffrey Ubben/Mason Morfit/ValueAct, Jonathan Litt/Land & Buildings, Keith Meister/Corvex, Mick McGuire/Marcato, Nelson Peltz/Ed Garden/Trian, Relational Investors and Tom Sandell/Sandell Asset Management, among many others.
In addition to serving as Consulting Editor for the New York Stock Exchange’s Corporate Governance Guide, Sabastian writes frequently on corporate law matters and has been a featured speaker at corporate strategy and investor forums and guest lecturer at leading law and business schools. His speaking engagements have addressed topics such as EESG, Corporate Purpose and Stakeholder Governance; M&A Trends; Shareholder Activism; The New Paradigm of Corporate Governance; Hostile Takeovers; Strategic Transactions and Governance; Board-Shareholder Engagement; Confidentiality Agreements in M&A Transactions; Negotiating Strategic Alliances with U.S. Companies; Current Issues in Technology M&A; Corporate Governance: Ethics, Transparency and Accountability; and Developments in Cross-Border Deals.
Sabastian is a director of the non-profit organization Literacy Partners and of the Harvard Law School Association of New York City. He received his juris doctorate from Harvard Law School, where he co-founded the Harvard Association of Law and Business and won the U.S. National ABA Negotiation Championship representing the Harvard Program on Negotiation. He received B.S., B.A. and B.S. degrees in Finance, Economics and Decision & Information Sciences, respectively, from the University of Maryland, where he won two National Championships and four Regional Championships in intercollegiate mock trial.
Chris Taylor is Vice President of Listings and Services at the New York Stock Exchange. In this role, he leads the business and the team that works closely with the 2500 companies listed on the NYSE whose collective market capitalization tops $20 trillion.
Mr. Taylor, who has more than 30 years of experience working with listed companies, is a frequent speaker and thought-leadership contributor on capital markets topics that impact issuers.
Prior to joining the NYSE, Mr. Taylor led the Global Investor Relations business at Ipreo, a leading market intelligence and data firm, for close to ten years. Prior to that, he served as lead Managing Director at CapitalBridge where he oversaw the global operations of the firm.
Mr. Taylor holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Management & Organization from the University of Connecticut.