What a useless distinction.

It's not useless.

If the threat is that unloading a position will cause a dip in shareholder value of $X, but those actually in control believe their own thesis and operating model is worth more than $X, then they can choose to weather the storm, believing their way will negate the loss of $X.

If they really don't have an answer to the activist investor's thesis, then yea, they'll roll over.

Seems pretty useful to me, as it accurately depicts who holds decisionmaking power and what the actual threat is.

But it completely ignores the commercial reality: 10% of your holdings making a move is sometimes enough to swing a board decision. Look at AGL in Australia and the recent play by Grok ventures. Nothing like 50% + 1. They moved the mountain.

You are conflating control with influence. Control is the ability to make a unilateral decision, consequences be damned. Influence is the ability to impose costs and benefits on a decision maker so that they do what you want

No disagree but also.. this is nitpicking. Everyone reading the flow knows what was meant here: change was effected by a significant minority of shareholders exerting influence. You would not be wrong saying colloquially "they were made to" or "had to" even though legally no force exists. Well clearly to a nitpicker you would be wrong, but half the room is now rolling their eyes.

Don't be that kid.

I don't think it is nitpicking. There are 40+ posts debating who has control and talking past eachother because they are using different definitions.

Yes 10% of your company being sold at once would be alarming. Thing is TCI does not have anything like that much. They have ~0.5% of the equity and less than 0.5% of the votes.