New research finds that activist campaigns by quasi-insiders -- former CEOs, directors, or founders, who left the target company for various reasons but still own an ample amount of stock -- are both surprisingly common and surprisingly effective. 

Campaigns are common. Between 1995 and 2021, 327 quasi-insiders took part in some 280 public campaigns.

Quasi-insiders are high up. Of the 327, about 38% were former CEOs, 30% company founders, and 21% former directors.

Campaigns often succeed. Of the campaigns, 43% achieved their main objective, such as gaining control of the target company’s board of directors. Cohn calls this rate “strikingly high.”

Wall Street approves. Stock prices of the target companies saw short-term boosts, with a mean increase of 3.9% from a day before the campaign announcement to 10 days after.

Employing too few permanent nurses on hospital wards is linked to longer inpatient stays, readmissions, patient deaths, and ultimately costs more in lives and money, finds a long term study published online in the journal BMJ Quality & Safety.  Redressing the balance is cost-effective, saving an estimated £4728 for each year of healthy life gained per patient, but not if  temporary agency staff are used to plug the gaps, the findings indicate.