It has been a rewarding week for activist investors. Carl Icahn succeeded in his $2.6 billion bid for CVR Energy (CVI) on May 7, Bill Ackman picked up some powerful allies for his May 17 proxy battle at Canadian Pacific (CP), and Dan Loeb scored a major victory with the May 13 resignation of Yahoo (YHOO) chief Scott Thompson. Moreover, despite management efforts to paint these hedge fund managers as opportunists, the trio has had public sentiment on their side. While bankers stand accused of hubris and excessive risk-taking, men who have invested billions in public companies with the clear goal of making much more are held up as defenders of the average investor.

(Source: businessweek.com)

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MUMBAI, India — In 2010, when the Indian government sold 10 percent of the shares of Coal India, one of the world’s largest coal mine operators, the transaction was a way to raise money to help reduce its budget deficit.

It did not anticipate that some of the shares would end up in the hands of activist hedge fund managers who would demand that the behemoth company, which employs more than 372,000 people, be managed differently.

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