Bruce Goldfarb, CEO and Founder of Okapi Partners joins David Drapkin on the Know Who Drives Return podcast. Bruce goes deep on what he’s seeing in recent proxy seasons, contested M&A, SPACs, AMC, and whether retail investors are good for the markets.
Discussion Details
- Who is Okapi Partners?
- Themes of the current proxy season
- Contested M&A situations
- Getting SPAC deals passed, and retail investor base
- Retail, reddit, and the individual investor dynamic
- AMC, Adam Aron and new retail strategy
- Are retail investors good for the markets?
- Director selection in activist situations
Bruce Goldfarb Biography
Bruce Goldfarb is Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Okapi Partners. He works closely with a wide range of clients including corporations, mutual funds, activist investors and shareholder groups as well as private equity sponsors and hedge funds, in solicitation and investor response campaigns. He focuses on proxy solicitation strategy, execution for mergers and acquisitions, proxy fights and other extraordinary transactions.
Prior to establishing Okapi Partners, Bruce was the Senior Managing Director and General Counsel of Georgeson Inc. (now a subsidiary of Computershare Limited), where he headed the Global M&A Advisory Group.
Before entering the proxy solicitation business, Bruce was a Senior Vice President of the investment management firm, Scudder, Stevens & Clark, now a part of Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management unit. He joined Scudder as a member of the Legal Department where he concentrated on transactions, including those involving mergers and acquisitions, international matters, alternative investment vehicles, off-shore funds and closed-end funds. Bruce also served as an executive officer of various closed-end funds advised by Scudder. He was the Chairman of Scudder’s Proxy Review Committee and served as the point person for the Scudder Funds proxy solicitation effort relating to the acquisition of Scudder by Zurich Financial Services Group.
Bruce began his career as an attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he worked for more than six years, specializing in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, securities transactions and international matters.
Bruce holds a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law. He also earned a B.A. in the History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania concurrently with a B.S. Economics with a concentration in Finance, from the Wharton School.
