The Deal
Saturday, November 7, 
7:25 pm

Blogger wages shareholder activist campaign

  Share     E-Mail    Discussion    Print Story

Zac Bissonnette is engaging in what he considers to be a unique kind of technology-based “citizens activism” at Adams Golf Inc., a Wilmington, Del.-based designer and distributor of golf clubs.

Continue reading below

Also on Dealscape

Bissonnette, who owns less than 1% of Adams Golf, has been pressing for governance and executive compensation changes at the company he considers undervalued. His blog, bloggingbuyouts.com, which is part of AOL LLC's Weblogs Inc., has been a mechanism to promote his agenda. (Bissonnette makes sure to disclose in his blogs that he owns a stake in the company.)

He considers himself a long-term governance-focused investor that believes shareholders owning less than the 5% stake in companies — the threshold needed to make public 13-D filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission — shouldn’t be discouraged from seeking to get their opinions heard. Technology, he said, may be helping him and other small investors get their message across to other investors.

“I really believe that the Internet is already starting to and will, much more so in the future, make it easier for very small shareholders to effect change through reasoned arguments on blogs and message boards,” Bissonnette said. “If you think about it, you really shouldn't need to be a 13-D filer to have your concerns heard. If your ideas make sense, they should be listened to.”

Since Bissonnette launched his efforts at Adams Golf, a large investor, John Gregory, acquired an 18% Adams Golf stake. After that, Adams Golf announced its intention to up-list to the Nasdaq, a positive development, said Bissonnette. “I had also advocated this development in my posts and asked the CEO about it on the conference calls,” he said.

Adams Golf has a $53 million stock market capitalization. — Ron Orol

See Oct. 31 story from Bloggingbuyouts
See Oct. 18 story from Bloggingbuyouts
See June 12 story from Bloggingbuyouts

Ron Orol is a Washington-based reporter for The Deal and author of Extreme Value Hedging: How Activist Hedge Fund Managers Are Taking on the World.  





Post a comment





The Deal Pipeline

Deal Video


Inside The Deal: Linklaters' Schmidt says how regulators handled Pfizer Inc.'s acquisition of Wyeth is an outlier of how others merger reviews will be conducted.


More video...

Crisis On Wall Street
Technology
Deals of The Decade

Community

Industry Insight

Dealing with frozen bank lending

If your bank is not willing to lend, what can you do as your company continues to seek growth?


Judgment Call

The coming age of the renminbi

The Chinese currency will play an increasingly important role in international commerce and finance.


Industry Insight

Banking on PE investments

Howls of protest greeted the FDIC policy statement, but the financial services industry should get over it.


footspacer.jpg footspacer.jpg footspacer.jpg footspacer.jpg footspacer.jpg


©Copyright 2009, The Deal, LLC. All rights reserved. Please send all technical questions, comments or concerns to the Webmaster.