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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2020 (Revised May 2020)

  CIAM: Home-Grown Shareholder Activism in France

  Charles CY Wang, Tonia Labruyere and Vincent Dessain

  The case discusses the strategy of CIAM, a French activist investment firm, involved in a case of a buy-out of minority shareholders in the telecommunications sector. Altice NV, an international telecommunications company based in the Netherlands that owned more than 77% of SFR Group shares, made a bid for the remaining shares of France’s second largest mobile operator. Believing that the offer was woefully inadequate and constituted an abuse of power, CIAM had been fighting for a better offer as one of SFR’s vocal minority shareholders with a series of action plans—leveraging legal, communications, and public relations tactics. CIAM had just received a new piece of information, divulging a potential misuse of SFR corporate assets by Altice, and was discussing next steps.

  Keywords: Corporate Governance; Private Equity; Valuation; Investment Activism; Financial Services Industry; France;

  Citation:

  Wang, Charles CY, Tonia Labruyere, and Vincent Dessain. "CIAM: Home-Grown Shareholder Activism in France." Harvard Business School Case 120-072, March 2020. (Revised May 2020.)  View Details

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• Teaching Plan | HBS Case Collection | May 2020

  SK Group: Social Progress Credits

  George Serafeim, Ethan Rouen and David Freiberg

  Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 120-071.

  Citation:

  Serafeim, George, Ethan Rouen, and David Freiberg. "SK Group: Social Progress Credits." Harvard Business School Teaching Plan 120-112, May 2020.  View Details

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• Article | Financial Analysts Journal | 2020

  Public Sentiment and the Price of Corporate Sustainability

  George Serafeim

  Combining corporate sustainability performance scores based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data with big data measuring public sentiment about a company’s sustainability performance, I find that the valuation premium paid for companies with strong sustainability performance has increased over time and that the premium is increasing as a function of positive public sentiment momentum. An ESG factor going long on firms with superior or increasing sustainability performance and negative sentiment momentum and short on firms with inferior or decreasing sustainability performance and positive sentiment momentum delivers significant positive alpha. This low sentiment ESG factor is uncorrelated with other factors, such as value, momentum, size, profitability, and investment. In contrast, the high sentiment ESG factor delivers insignificant alpha and is strongly negatively correlated with the value factor. The evidence suggests that public sentiment influences investor views about the value of corporate sustainability activities and thereby both the price paid for corporate sustainability and the investment returns of portfolios that consider ESG data.

  Keywords: sustainability; ESG; ESG (environmental, social, governance) performance; investment management; investment strategy; big data; Machine learning; environment; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Performance; Asset Pricing; Investment; Management; Strategy; Human Capital; Public Opinion; Value;

  Citation:

  Serafeim, George. "Public Sentiment and the Price of Corporate Sustainability." Financial Analysts Journal 76, no. 2 (2020): 26–46.  View Details

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