The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:32:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png What Do Investors Learn in Private Meetings? Evidence from 4,700 Encounters with Portfolio Firms – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 What Do Investors Learn in Private Meetings? Evidence from 4,700 Encounters with Portfolio Firms https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2026/04/21/what-do-investors-learn-in-private-meetings-evidence-from-4700-encounters-with-portfolio-firms/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-do-investors-learn-in-private-meetings-evidence-from-4700-encounters-with-portfolio-firms https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2026/04/21/what-do-investors-learn-in-private-meetings-evidence-from-4700-encounters-with-portfolio-firms/#respond Tue, 21 Apr 2026 11:31:04 +0000 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/?p=180505?d=20260420155854EDT Posted by Marco Becht (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Julian Franks (London Business School), and Hannes F. Wagner (Bocconi University), on Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Editor's Note:

Marco Becht is a Professor of Finance at Solvay Brussels School, Université Libre de Bruxelles; Julian Franks is a Professor of Finance at London Business School; and Hannes F. Wagner is a Professor of Finance at Bocconi University. This post is based on their recent article, forthcoming in the Journal of Finance.

Private meetings between institutional investors and the boards and management of their portfolio firms have grown substantially worldwide as investors comply with stewardship codes and engage in active ownership. At the same time, these meetings are frequently undisclosed, raising concerns about fair disclosure and insider trading. While prior research has studied investor engagement through the lens of activist campaigns or global activism patterns, little is known about the day-to-day private interactions between mainstream asset managers and their portfolio companies. In our paper, The Benefits of Access: Evidence from Private Meetings with Portfolio Firms, forthcoming in the Journal of Finance, we use large language models (LLMs) to analyze the content of 4,700 private meetings between a large active asset manager and its portfolio firms and examine how the information obtained in these meetings affects trading decisions and performance.

(more…)

]]> https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2026/04/21/what-do-investors-learn-in-private-meetings-evidence-from-4700-encounters-with-portfolio-firms/feed/ 0