AI Artificial Intelligence words are seen in this illustration taken, May 4, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Corporate advisory firm Longacre Square Partners has formed a strategic partnership with artificial intelligence startup InvestorSight to give its clients access to AI tools to assess investor behavior in takeovers and board fights.
The program designed by InvestorSight, a firm co-founded by Dartmouth professor Mark DesJardine and data scientists, is the first interactive tool to model how mutual funds and other institutional investors are likely to react to various corporate situations.
It can be used to gather advanced data, including how investors have voted in previous contests, to assess vulnerability for a company or activist investor mounting a campaign.
Investment banks and other institutions already offer corporate vulnerability assessments, but InvestorSight is an interactive tool that lets the user model different outcomes.
Its introduction comes at a time activist investors are taking aim at big and small companies alike, often pushing them to refresh boards or consider putting themselves up for sale.
Longacre, founded in 2021 by Greg Marose and Dan Zacchei, counts GameStop and Bausch & Lomb as clients.
It advised hedge fund Politan in its successful proxy fight at Masimo, and activist investor Ancora on its campaign to elect directors and push for management changes at Norfolk Southern.
DesJardine will join Longacre's advisory board.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Jan Harvey)
