[harry8]

An activist investor is a kind of value investor. "These assets are worth more than the market says - the discount is bad management. Let's buy the assets cheap (good value) and change the people who, as owners, we pay to manage those assets."

The idea that such an approach is anything but value and anything but completely normal and somehow rebellious and untrustworthy is quite weird and speaks to some kind of capture of highly paid management position by some kind of group of people. (I really hesitate to use the word "class" because these people might be a temporary alliance including the born poor and status challenged - the marxist "born to it" doesn't help the analysis much at all. Think the cool, sports jock table at high school).

[eru]

> An activist investor is a kind of value investor. "These assets are worth more than the market says - [...]

Isn't any investor who's not just buying an index fund a value investor by that broad definition?

(Even shortsellers just say: this stuff is worth less than the market says.)

[harry8]

As opposed speculator. "It's going up, i just know it." Or market makers, or technical analysts, or reading tea leaves...etc

Value investor suggests you have valued the assets and have reason for thinking they are underpriced. Shareholders own the company's assets. Managers are their employees and are not owned any more than any employees or indeed humans are owned.