Listen up y’all, because Goldman Sachs has just released a statement that’s sure to make a few millionaire investors sweat: they’ve found a bunch of big-time companies that are just begging to be targeted by activists. “These four attributes represent potential sources of vulnerability that might prompt an activist attack,” said Goldman Sachs CEO David Kostin, in what we can only assume was a serious voice but come on David, we all know this is hilarious. Their screening process involved looking at the Russell 3000 index and finding firms with a market cap of over $5 billion and at least one of the following factors: low EV/sales valuation, bad sales growth in the past year, weak balance sheets, and bad governance.
AT&T is one such company that’s appeared on Goldman Sachs’ list of easy targets. The telecom’s been feeling the sting of activist investors for years, with Paul Singer’s Elliott Management breathing down their necks in their last big campaign. Elliott browbeat AT&T into cutting costs, changing the management, and scaling back their expansion plans. eBay’s another one that’s no stranger to the pokes and prods of activism, with Starboard Value launching two proxy fights over the last few years.
Bath & Body Works, too, might see some wild investor action this year—maybe even more intense than their “buy three, get one free” promotions. Bigwig investor Dan Loeb is already talking about shaking things up with the retailer, mainly because he thinks the company could stand to work on its corporate governance a bit. And if you thought Best Buy, Burlington Stores, and CarMax were all safe from the wrath of big money activists, well we’ve got some news for you: Goldman thinks those three might end up on the chopping block too.
Goldman’s Michael Bloomberg contributed to this report, but we’re pretty sure the real brains behind this were all the Goldman analysts performing a top-notch impression of a generic evil mastermind. Watch out, corporations—activists are coming for you!
Serious News: cnbc