Bill Ackman: You Get The Shareholders You Deserve

During his recent interview with Jamie Heller at the WSJ D.Live Conference, Bill Ackman discussed a number of topics including why companies get the shareholders they deserve. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Ackman: You get the shareholders you deserve. If you have earnings guidance you’re going to have analysts and investors focused on guidance, and you’re going to have shareholders who are very focused on the short term. If you don’t you’re going to attract investors who take a longer term view.

Host: And activists are usually socially short-termism, but, no?

Ackman: I don’t think so. I think activists today are socially… generally the long-term investors on Wall Street. It’s really the mutual funds that tend to be much shorter term.

You can watch the entire interview here: