Jesse Cohn, center, is the righthand man for Paul Singer, on the right. He's brought a campaign against Randall Stephenson's AT&T.This story requires our BI Prime membership. To read the full article,The latest campaign for Wall Street hedge fund Elliott Management is a big one, taking on well-known American staple AT&T.
Sources tell Business Insider that Cohn, and Elliott's activism as a whole, are transforming as the firm positions itself as a long-term investor.Jesse Cohn has been behind some of the ugliest shareholder tussles and boardroom battles in history during his 15 years at Paul Singer's Elliott Management.
"I wouldn't want to be [AT&T management]," said one long-time adviser to companies' boards of directors. A review of his career should be required reading for AT&T's board: From falling into finance as someone who didn't know what he wanted to do in his early 20s to becoming Paul Singer's attack dog on some of his most influential campaigns, Cohn has developed a reputation as a feared investor with the means to change America's blue-chip corporations.
Elliott "is one of the only activist funds that is not an alter ego of the founder," he said, as it maintains a corporate structure, with nine management committee members around billionaire Singer. At the same time, its investments have increasingly been packaged as a play for the long-term good of a corporation.
"I think that was an early, defining moment for Jesse, to honor his commitment," said McGuire, who is still in touch with Cohn today. It wouldn't be the last time Cohn's pressure on companies would contribute to the fraying of relationships among company management. After the board declined the bid, Karmanos told a crowd of several hundred people at a business conference that if he were still in charge, he "would tell the hedge fund to go f--- themselves," according to a lengthy account of the matter in theThey said Cohn had thick files of personal information on each board member with details on what jobs their spouses had and schools their kids attended.
: Riverbed Technologies, which Thoma Bravo and other investors bought in 2014. The fund has put billions of dollars to work, taking companies like Gigamon, Travelport and Athenahealth private. Cohn has joined the boards of companies he has pressed in the past, such as Citrix and eBay. While it's unknown if he will end up on the AT&T board, Cohn's current and former board member colleagues say he isn't resistant to compromise once he's able to get a better understanding of the company.
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