Economy-class activist investor crashes the corporate party

(Reuters) Shareholder activists come in different flavors. One is the deep-pocketed investor, such as Carl Icahn or Dan Loeb, who takes big stakes in companies and forces management to change strategy. Another type is the persistent provocateur who buys a handful of shares and agitates on a shoestring. That's John Chevedden.

Now 67 years old, Chevedden launched his career as an activist - he rejects the term "gadfly" - after being laid off from the aerospace industry in the early 1990s. Since then, he has unleashed a relentless flow of shareholder proxy measures at some of the largest U.S. companies.

Even skeptics grant that Chevedden has become one of the most influential U.S. shareholder activists. James Copland of the Manhattan Institute, a free-market think tank, says Chevedden is "leading the intellectual curve, getting proposals out there before they start to get traction." Texas attorney Geoffrey Harrison, who has faced Chevedden on behalf of corporate clients, describes him as possibly the most persistent sponsor of shareholder resolutions ever.

Read full article here.