Activist investing is no longer the preserve of hedge-fund sharks

Trade unions rarely look to corporate raiders for inspiration. Yet the Strategic Organising Centre (SOC), a coalition of North American workers groups, is mounting the sort of campaign normally associated with hedge funds. The group’s target is Starbucks, a coffee-shop chain with a market capitalisation of $107bn. Whereas traditional activist investors take a chunk of a company and pressure its management to change strategy, hoping to gain from a bump in the share price, the SOC owns a mere $16,000-worth of Starbucks shares, and ultimately wants to improve the lot of the firm’s workers.

Its pitch is that the interests of shareholders and workers are, in fact, aligned. Starbucks is wasting money and alienating customers with its approach to “human-capital management”, the group argues. Productivity would be higher, and spending on consultants lower, should Starbucks follow its workplace advice. Therefore it wants three of its candidates appointed to Starbucks’s 11-person board. The hot-drinks behemoth is less convinced. The board is already stocked with “world-class business leaders”, says a representative, who adds that in the last fiscal year a fifth of profits went towards wage increases, training and new equipment.