Blogger wages shareholder activist campaign

Zac Bissonnette is engaging in what he considers to be a unique kind of technology-based “citizens activism” at Adams Golf Inc., a Wilmington, Del.-based designer and distributor of golf clubs.
Bissonnette, who owns less than 1% of Adams Golf, has been pressing for governance and executive compensation changes at the company he considers undervalued. His blog, bloggingbuyouts.com, which is part of AOL LLC's Weblogs Inc., has been a mechanism to promote his agenda. (Bissonnette makes sure to disclose in his blogs that he owns a stake in the company.)
He considers himself a long-term governance-focused investor that believes shareholders owning less than the 5% stake in companies — the threshold needed to make public 13-D filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission — shouldn’t be discouraged from seeking to get their opinions heard. Technology, he said, may be helping him and other small investors get their message across to other investors.
“I really believe that the Internet is already starting to and will, much more so in the future, make it easier for very small shareholders to effect change through reasoned arguments on blogs and message boards,” Bissonnette said. “If you think about it, you really shouldn't need to be a 13-D filer to have your concerns heard. If your ideas make sense, they should be listened to.”
Since Bissonnette launched his efforts at Adams Golf, a large investor, John Gregory, acquired an 18% Adams Golf stake. After that, Adams Golf announced its intention to up-list to the Nasdaq, a positive development, said Bissonnette. “I had also advocated this development in my posts and asked the CEO about it on the conference calls,” he said.
Adams Golf has a $53 million stock market capitalization. — Ron Orol
See Oct. 31 story from BloggingbuyoutsSee Oct. 18 story from BloggingbuyoutsSee June 12 story from Bloggingbuyouts
Ron Orol is a Washington-based reporter for The Deal and author of Extreme Value Hedging: How Activist Hedge Fund Managers Are Taking on the World.