Brooke Sutherland, Columnist

Bill Ackman Is Long ADP But You Wouldn't Know It

The activist's case for value creation at his latest target was oddly heavy on criticism and short on fresh actionable fixes.

August 17, 2017 at 4:41 PM UTC

By Brooke Sutherland

Brooke Sutherland is Bloomberg News' Boston bureau chief and writes the Industrial Strength Newsletter. She was previously a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies and an M&A reporter for Bloomberg News.

1502988676_pic — Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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Well, this is going well.

Activist investor Bill Ackman finally unveiled his plan to boost the stock price of human-resources services provider Automatic Data Processing Inc. on Thursday. This comes nearly a full two weeks after ADP publicized his wish for board seats and a potential replacement of the CEO.1502986917725 I can see now why he kept everyone waiting for so long: the presentation spanned a whopping 167 slides and surpassed three hours. After all that research, spreadsheet work and sheer breath, the effect was … well, see for yourself: