When the board of directors is confronted by activist shareholders: the case of Danone Group

A firm's board of directors is considered an essential element of corporate governance. Its objective is to reduce agency costs, consequent to the separation of ownership and control (Gordon, 2006). Agency issues in corporate governance increase interest for activist events (Brav et al., 2008; Zhu, 2013; Fos, 2017). Danone, with four activist shareholders events between 2012 and 2021, might have faced agency issues that provoked these events. The purpose of this article is to identify any agency issue during this period and to evaluate to which extent it could have been a trigger for activism.