如果不是西瓜,，Elliott Management可能已經(jīng)在韓國(guó)贏了。

2015年夏,，這家由保羅·辛格創(chuàng)立的維權(quán)對(duì)沖基金公司開(kāi)始和三星帝國(guó)對(duì)抗,，目的是阻止這家韓國(guó)綜合型集團(tuán)實(shí)施辛格眼中的不公平交易。辛格40年前創(chuàng)立了Elliott Management,，目前仍是負(fù)責(zé)人,。當(dāng)時(shí)Elliott是三星工程業(yè)務(wù)的主要投資者,，出現(xiàn)問(wèn)題的原因是三星會(huì)長(zhǎng)李健熙的身體出了狀況后,，他的兒子李在镕開(kāi)始在這家韓國(guó)最大企業(yè)進(jìn)行權(quán)力整合。李在镕打算讓三星的一家子公司斥資80億美元收購(gòu)工程業(yè)務(wù),，但遭到Elliott拒絕,，原因是它認(rèn)為收購(gòu)價(jià)太低，而且開(kāi)始游說(shuō)其他股東予以抵制,。韓國(guó)是Elliott有史以來(lái)距紐約總部最遠(yuǎn)的投資地,，李在镕對(duì)這家對(duì)沖基金公司來(lái)說(shuō)是一個(gè)狡猾的對(duì)手，而且在韓國(guó)有巨大的影響力,。三星甚至在網(wǎng)上給辛格畫(huà)上了禿鷲的喙,，并配上文字說(shuō)外界認(rèn)為辛格是反對(duì)猶太分子。

但最終,，左右投票者的可能是“糖分”,。隨著此項(xiàng)交易審批會(huì)議的臨近，三星代表開(kāi)始挨家挨戶地拜訪股東,，而且?guī)е鞴虾秃颂尹c(diǎn)心,，意在爭(zhēng)取股東的支持。最終收購(gòu)得到了批準(zhǔn),。Elliott在幾周后賣掉了自己的股份,，這是它罕見(jiàn)的服軟舉動(dòng)。

但事情并未就此結(jié)束,。今年早些時(shí)候,，韓國(guó)政府爆出腐敗丑聞,，樸槿惠就此下臺(tái)，三星也遭到牽連,。今年8月,，李在镕承認(rèn)行賄。為確保擊敗Elliott,，三星曾將一匹價(jià)值83萬(wàn)美元的盛裝舞步賽馬贈(zèng)送給一位關(guān)鍵政壇人士的女兒,，這位政壇人士進(jìn)而勸說(shuō)韓國(guó)國(guó)民年金公團(tuán)——世界上最大的養(yǎng)老基金之一對(duì)此次并購(gòu)?fù)顿澇善薄Ｈ缃?，李在镕已經(jīng)入獄,，Elliott則被證明是正確的。和辛格一起擔(dān)任公司聯(lián)合CEO的喬納森·波拉克說(shuō)：“當(dāng)時(shí)我根本不知道這會(huì)讓韓國(guó)總統(tǒng)遭到彈劾,?！痹谧肪啃袨椴划?dāng)?shù)墓緯r(shí)，Elliott有時(shí)會(huì)翻出一些劣跡,?！斑z憾的是，一些涉足其中的人往往把股東和債權(quán)人的權(quán)力置于腦后,，而且為所欲為,。”

實(shí)際情況表明,，三星事件的結(jié)果不光是Elliott的一個(gè)分水嶺,，對(duì)股東維權(quán)主義來(lái)說(shuō)也是如此。維權(quán)股東利用手中的股份對(duì)上市公司施壓,，以便帶來(lái)改變從而提高收益,，具體途徑包括業(yè)務(wù)重組、管理層更迭,、甚至將公司轉(zhuǎn)讓,。近年來(lái)，隨著越來(lái)越多的跨國(guó)投資者開(kāi)始尋找競(jìng)爭(zhēng)優(yōu)勢(shì),，股東的這種激烈行為變得更加普遍,。在這方面，40歲的Elliott已經(jīng)成為最大而且最活躍的維權(quán)對(duì)沖基金,，而且看來(lái)幾乎總是能得償所愿,。

律師事務(wù)所Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz創(chuàng)始合伙人、發(fā)明了毒丸防御策略的馬蒂·利普頓指出：“Elliott的所作所為可能最有指導(dǎo)意義,，而且影響也最為深遠(yuǎn),。” 利普頓最近和Elliott面對(duì)面的次數(shù)變得更多，所涉及的層面也超過(guò)以往任何時(shí)候,?！八麄円恢倍挤浅３晒Γ沂侨缃窬S權(quán)主義的一大影響因素,?！?

過(guò)去五年中，Elliott在50多家公司發(fā)起了維權(quán)活動(dòng),，僅今年就有19家,，范圍至少覆蓋十幾個(gè)國(guó)家和地區(qū)。在此期間,，只有和三星的斗爭(zhēng)發(fā)展到了投票階段,，也只有這次Elliott未能實(shí)現(xiàn)目標(biāo)——由此可見(jiàn)它在迫使管理層接受其要求方面是多么的有效。同時(shí),，Elliott的資產(chǎn)基本上翻了一番,，達(dá)到約390億美元，其中包括今年5月在23個(gè)小時(shí)內(nèi)籌集到的50億美元,，這讓它的規(guī)模比行業(yè)第二大維權(quán)對(duì)沖基金——丹·勒布的Third Point大了一倍多,。

這樣的資金體量，再加上400人的團(tuán)隊(duì),，使得Elliott所向披靡,，無(wú)論是行業(yè)巨頭還是各國(guó)政府，實(shí)際上都不可能在對(duì)抗中取勝,。沃倫·巴菲特今年夏天就嘗到了厲害——Elliott利用自己強(qiáng)大的資金實(shí)力成功阻止了伯克希爾-哈撒韋收購(gòu)能源公司Oncor,，它買下了Oncor的所有債務(wù)，并威脅要行使債權(quán)人否決權(quán),。最近，Elliott打算克隆這樣的成功策略——今年它發(fā)起的維權(quán)活動(dòng)數(shù)量比2016年多了一半左右,，差不多是其他所有大型維權(quán)基金全部維權(quán)活動(dòng)的三倍,。今年10月Elliott更是在一天里兩次進(jìn)行維權(quán)。

Elliott的成功記錄和其他許多同類維權(quán)基金的表現(xiàn)形成了鮮明對(duì)比,，這些維權(quán)基金最近對(duì)《財(cái)富》500強(qiáng)企業(yè)展開(kāi)的行動(dòng)一敗涂地,，其中包括比爾·阿克曼和ADP的代理權(quán)爭(zhēng)奪，Greenlight Capital創(chuàng)始人大衛(wèi)·艾因霍恩今年早些時(shí)候?qū)νㄓ闷嚦鍪?，甚至還有Trian Partners首席執(zhí)行官納爾遜·佩爾茨,，他在今年秋天和寶潔的大規(guī)模代理權(quán)爭(zhēng)奪戰(zhàn)中險(xiǎn)勝，但在讓他進(jìn)入董事會(huì)的問(wèn)題上仍和寶潔爭(zhēng)執(zhí)不下,。反觀Elliott,，40年來(lái)這只基金的年均回報(bào)率為13.4%，在對(duì)沖基金領(lǐng)域首屈一指，而且能在對(duì)沖基金遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)落后于市場(chǎng)的時(shí)候跑贏大盤(pán),。該公司的旗艦基金Elliott Associates五年來(lái)的年均回報(bào)率超過(guò)9.7%,，整個(gè)對(duì)沖基金行業(yè)的平均回報(bào)率則為4.7%。

同時(shí),，Elliott將維權(quán)活動(dòng)的規(guī)模擴(kuò)展到了空前水平,，被它罷免的公司高管越來(lái)越多，敢于和它對(duì)抗的政府首腦甚至也被趕下了臺(tái),。就在去年,，Elliott 最終在一場(chǎng)歷時(shí)15年的斗爭(zhēng)中徹底獲勝，從而迫使阿根廷償還債務(wù),。在這場(chǎng)拉鋸戰(zhàn)中,，該公司甚至一度扣留了阿根廷海軍的高桅橫帆船以及船上官兵。Elliott最終實(shí)現(xiàn)收益24億美元,，幾個(gè)月后,，阿根廷總統(tǒng)克里斯蒂娜·費(fèi)爾南德斯·基什內(nèi)爾遭起訴。正是這位總統(tǒng)在2014年帶領(lǐng)阿根廷違約,，而不是償還Elliott的欠款（這個(gè)決定也導(dǎo)致了她所在的政黨改選）,。克里斯·瑟爾尼奇在為公司高管爭(zhēng)奪代理權(quán)提供顧問(wèn)服務(wù)的機(jī)構(gòu)Strategic Governance Advisors擔(dān)任董事總經(jīng)理,。他說(shuō)：“Elliott是唯一一家在兩個(gè)主權(quán)國(guó)家引發(fā)政權(quán)更迭的公司,，他們成功的原因在于做正確的事，而且是非常公開(kāi)地做正確的事,?！?

在證明自己是正確的過(guò)程中，Elliott變得非常善于利用對(duì)手身上的壓力,，但他們的對(duì)手指出,，Elliott的辦法甚至?xí)黄频赖碌拙€。通過(guò)采訪40多位跟Elliott打過(guò)交道的人,，包括投行人士,、顧問(wèn)、各類公司的董事以及Elliott的前任和現(xiàn)任成員,，《財(cái)富》雜志了解到了此前沒(méi)有披露過(guò)的細(xì)節(jié),，從而明白Elliott為了獲勝會(huì)走得多遠(yuǎn)。

對(duì)許多觀察者來(lái)說(shuō),，今年春天Elliott似乎又證明自己的是對(duì)的——有人把一個(gè)足球送到了保羅·辛格門(mén)前,。1月份Elliott公開(kāi)要求解雇航空制造商Arconic首席執(zhí)行官克勞斯·克萊因菲爾德。Arconic去年從Alcoa剝離了出來(lái),。Elliott對(duì)克萊因菲爾德在任期間Arconic股票的低回報(bào)率以及這位CEO的高薪酬表示不滿,。但Arconic拒絕讓他下課,，一場(chǎng)代理權(quán)爭(zhēng)奪戰(zhàn)就此展開(kāi)。

四個(gè)月后,，克萊因菲爾德用這樣一只足球作為回應(yīng),，后者從Arconic的紐約總部快遞到了辛格在紐約的辦公室?？巳R因菲爾德還附了一封信,，其中以諷刺口吻影射了2006年世界杯期間辛格專門(mén)在柏林舉辦的一些“仍具傳奇色彩”的聚會(huì)。在信末附言中,，克萊因菲爾德還暗示辛格行為不端,，比如戴美國(guó)原住民帽子以及在公共噴泉里唱《雨中曲》。他還說(shuō),，下次一定要送辛格一頂帶羽毛的帽子,。

按Elliott的說(shuō)法，這等同于送上“放有血淋淋手指的盒子”,。Elliott法律顧問(wèn)理查德·扎貝爾在寫(xiě)給Arconic董事會(huì)的信中說(shuō)：“我們看到的是克萊因菲爾德博士隱含地表示他可能是在恐嚇或敲詐辛格先生,。”過(guò)了不到一周Arconic董事會(huì)就直接讓克萊因菲爾德辭了職,。Elliott似乎幸運(yùn)地借突發(fā)事件達(dá)到了目的,，利用的是對(duì)手的“非受迫性失誤”。

但《財(cái)富》雜志了解到,，在這背后,，Elliott一直在和克萊因菲爾德以及Arconic“冷戰(zhàn)”，它的秘密“間諜活動(dòng)”一直從美國(guó)東海岸延伸到了歐洲,。

就克萊因菲爾德而言,，這些小動(dòng)作始于兩名自稱私人調(diào)查員的人找到他在紐約韋斯特切斯特縣的鄰居家，調(diào)查克萊因菲爾德家里的“吵鬧聚會(huì)”,。隨著Elliott不斷給Arconic施壓,，克萊因菲爾德的朋友和同事以及Arconic的董事都有了更可疑的遭遇——其中一對(duì)夫婦住在克萊因菲爾德附近，曾有陌生人尾隨他們到周邊一家餐廳,，然后走上前來(lái)說(shuō)有意和克萊因菲爾德一同投資,，但先要問(wèn)幾個(gè)問(wèn)題。這位出生在德國(guó)的CEO拒絕接受《財(cái)富》雜志采訪,，但五位了解情況的人士都證實(shí)有這樣的事。他們都相信這是Elliott所為,，其中一人說(shuō)：“我們認(rèn)為他們做的過(guò)分了,。”

最讓克萊因菲爾德揪心的是他在哈佛商學(xué)院讀書(shū)的一個(gè)女兒,。有人在校園里找到她,，要和他在Facebook上“成為朋友”,。這個(gè)人還向她的朋友們打聽(tīng)她的家庭情況。雖然律師和顧問(wèn)說(shuō)爭(zhēng)奪代理權(quán)時(shí)經(jīng)常會(huì)派人研究對(duì)方的情況,，但公司高管的子女,，無(wú)論年齡大小，一般都被視為“禁區(qū)”,。

Elliott似乎并未因此感到不安,。法院證詞和《財(cái)富》對(duì)七個(gè)人的采訪記錄顯示，Elliott攻擊對(duì)象的子女至少有三次被牽入其中,，目的顯然是獲得其父母的信息或占據(jù)上風(fēng),。其中一次涉及Arconic在德國(guó)的公關(guān)顧問(wèn)諾爾伯特·埃辛，有人找到了其子女在倫敦的鄰居,，詢問(wèn)埃辛本人及其子女吸毒的事,。而不久之前，Elliott曾公開(kāi)指責(zé)埃辛幫助或鼓勵(lì)克萊因菲爾德寫(xiě)了那封跟足球一起送來(lái)的信（埃辛對(duì)此予以否認(rèn)）,。

《財(cái)富》為撰寫(xiě)本文而進(jìn)行采訪時(shí),，Elliott讓兩位高管做了有限的“接待”，而且否認(rèn)自己在維權(quán)時(shí)使用過(guò)私人調(diào)查員,。一位接近Elliott的人士否認(rèn)Elliott對(duì)Arconic的研究中包括來(lái)自或有關(guān)高管子女的信息,。但幾位消息人士透露，在維權(quán)對(duì)沖基金的小世界里,，Elliott看來(lái)一直都有采取強(qiáng)硬戰(zhàn)術(shù)的特別“名聲”,。對(duì)這種“無(wú)下限”做法的不恥甚至讓著名維權(quán)人士、對(duì)沖基金ValueAct首席執(zhí)行官杰夫·烏本在5月份梅肯研究院大會(huì)的一場(chǎng)研討會(huì)上對(duì)克萊因菲爾德表示支持,。

雖然存在爭(zhēng)議,，但挖黑歷史以及其他激進(jìn)行為可以帶來(lái)金錢買不到的力量。這也恰恰體現(xiàn)出Elliott和那些不太成功的對(duì)沖基金有何不同,。摩根士丹利全球股東維權(quán)和公司防御部門(mén)顧問(wèn)大衛(wèi)·羅斯沃特說(shuō)：“要想真的做好維權(quán)這件事,，就不光要聰明和毅力，還要下定決心,。不是人人都愿意當(dāng)壞人,。” 羅斯沃特此前曾擔(dān)任Elliott的代表律師,。

Elliott由保羅·埃利奧特·辛格于1977年成立,。經(jīng)過(guò)培訓(xùn)成為律師后，辛格發(fā)現(xiàn)通過(guò)司法系統(tǒng)自己可以作為一名投資者在破產(chǎn)和仲裁案件中獲得巨大收益,。億萬(wàn)富翁辛格幾乎是保守的代名詞,，73歲的他堅(jiān)持對(duì)沖自己的所有投資以降低損失風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，他還把“人的努力”,，或者說(shuō)需要花費(fèi)氣力的老式做法譽(yù)為自己投資風(fēng)格的決定性特色,。

據(jù)非常了解他的人介紹,，辛格是很有權(quán)利的共和黨捐款人，但因資助“Never Trump”組織和共和黨分道揚(yáng)鑣,，他還支持同性婚姻,，而且很關(guān)注自己和員工的個(gè)人安全。Elliott基本上不允許員工使用社交媒體,；例外情況寥寥無(wú)幾,，員工不能在網(wǎng)上發(fā)布自己的照片，甚至是在公司使用的正式照片,，這讓他們幾乎成了數(shù)字時(shí)代的“幽靈”,。這些謹(jǐn)慎措施旨在保護(hù)員工，以免有人對(duì)Elliott感到不滿,。Elliott的一位投資者說(shuō)：“保羅對(duì)安全問(wèn)題總是非常多疑,。”由于擔(dān)心冒犯辛格,，這位投資者要求不透露其身份,。辛格把這樣的哲學(xué)發(fā)揮到了極致，他甚至對(duì)沖了Elliott在曼哈頓的總部——在新澤西州設(shè)有同樣占據(jù)五個(gè)樓層的后備辦公室,，就是為了以防萬(wàn)一,。

20世紀(jì)80和90年代，Elliott把精力主要集中在問(wèn)題債務(wù)和其他較冷僻的證券商,，當(dāng)時(shí)涉足這些領(lǐng)域的華爾街投資者較少,。該公司如今的維權(quán)活動(dòng)則始于2004年，也就是杰西·科恩加入公司后,?？贫鳜F(xiàn)年37歲，是Elliott的“淘氣鬼”,，喜歡汽車和鐵人三項(xiàng),。來(lái)自長(zhǎng)島的科恩說(shuō)話很快，有時(shí)迅速得就好像在快進(jìn)一樣,?？贫髡f(shuō)自己是計(jì)算機(jī)系宅男，進(jìn)入Elliott前曾在摩根士丹利并購(gòu)?fù)缎胁抗ぷ鬟^(guò)兩年,。正是在摩根士丹利時(shí),，科恩開(kāi)始給小型科技公司寫(xiě)信，敦促它們把自己賣出去,，從而讓股東大賺一筆,。

科恩的“粉絲遇上撮合者”的心態(tài)為他贏得了自以為是的名聲。2010年,，在寫(xiě)給Novell董事會(huì)的信中,，科恩說(shuō)自己14歲時(shí)曾拿到該公司的一種IT證書(shū)，從而讓這封敵意收購(gòu)信平添了一絲迷人的認(rèn)同感,。這樣的自負(fù)行為起了作用,。Novell轉(zhuǎn)讓給了私募基金，科恩的做法也給了老板們足夠深刻的印象,，后者把他提拔為美國(guó)股票維權(quán)部門(mén)負(fù)責(zé)人,。科恩促成了十幾家公司的轉(zhuǎn)讓或收購(gòu),，包括BMC Software,、Informatica、LifeLock和EMC,，其中戴爾2015年斥資670億美元收購(gòu)EMC是最大的一筆交易,。瑞士瑞信銀行負(fù)責(zé)應(yīng)付權(quán)力爭(zhēng)奪情況的克里斯·楊在科恩進(jìn)入Elliott時(shí)就認(rèn)識(shí)他。楊說(shuō)：“在開(kāi)展維權(quán)活動(dòng)方面,，我不知道是否還有人比他更有經(jīng)驗(yàn),。

辛格盡量避免加入公司董事會(huì)，不過(guò)科恩加入了四家,，而且對(duì)公司事務(wù)參與得比較深入,，后來(lái)Elliott有些投資人誤認(rèn)為科恩是辛格的侄子。辛格很少公開(kāi)露面（他也拒絕了本文作者采訪）,，看上目標(biāo)公司后他也很少參與談判,，科恩則總是沖在前線?！氨Ａ_在很多事上是拍板的人,，但杰斯更像神一樣，積極投資圈里人人都知道他,，” Elliott代理律師事務(wù)所Schulte Roth & Zabel合伙人兼股東權(quán)益維護(hù)團(tuán)體聯(lián)席主席的馬克·魏恩加滕表示,。

私下里，坐在談判桌另一側(cè)的人們也能看到科恩另一面,，一位戰(zhàn)略壓力應(yīng)用大師,。他的另一面隨著Compuware收購(gòu)案為世人所知。Compuware是總部位于底特律的一家商業(yè)軟件開(kāi)發(fā)商,，2014年在Elliott運(yùn)作下由私募股權(quán)公司Thoma Bravo以24億美元價(jià)格收購(gòu),。

2013年9月，Compuware董事會(huì)代表團(tuán)飛往紐約跟Elliott商談,，提出己方的要求,。會(huì)議開(kāi)始，科恩匆匆翻閱了六英尺厚的文件,，其中都是故意貶損Compuware訪客的內(nèi)容,，還包括前通用汽車首席執(zhí)行官韓德勝,。私募股權(quán)公司General Atlantic顧問(wèn)董事比爾·格拉貝當(dāng)時(shí)在Compuware擔(dān)任董事會(huì)任職，后來(lái)在仲裁程序中作證說(shuō),，科恩還不害臊地聊到韓德勝的女兒,。“你有個(gè)女兒,，在做些什么什么,，”格拉貝記得科恩這么說(shuō)過(guò)，這位年輕的基金經(jīng)理回想起當(dāng)時(shí)的情景,?！澳忝媲暗母呤肿钌瞄L(zhǎng)的策略是恐嚇、分化,、想盡一切辦法顛覆,，”格拉貝的證詞稱。同一案例中,，時(shí)任Compuware首席執(zhí)行官的鮑勃·保羅作證說(shuō),，后來(lái)一次電話中，科恩還“含蓄地威脅”,，說(shuō)他知道保羅車庫(kù)里藏著一輛阿斯頓馬丁,，他說(shuō)，“順便說(shuō)下,，你開(kāi)的那輛英國(guó)車不錯(cuò),。”

這些沖突首次披露是在一次跟Compuware聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人彼得·卡爾瑪諾斯二世的糾紛中,，這件事也為卡爾瑪諾斯在密歇根州立法院的官司提供了證據(jù),，新近官司里指控Elliott “脅迫”董事賣掉公司?！癊lliott就是在占便宜,，”卡爾瑪諾斯告訴《財(cái)富》，“然后他們做得更過(guò)分,，還刻意歪曲了規(guī)則,。”1973年,，卡爾瑪諾斯創(chuàng)立Compuware,，當(dāng)時(shí)只有退稅支票的幾百美元。Elliott介入時(shí)他已經(jīng)宣布從董事會(huì)退休,，但幾個(gè)月后因?yàn)樗_(kāi)說(shuō)了句“要讓對(duì)沖基金滾一邊去”,，顧問(wèn)的職務(wù)也被解除了。不過(guò)他表示說(shuō)那句話不后悔?！把劭粗颈荒菐图~約來(lái)的混蛋拆得四分五裂太難受了,，”他說(shuō)。

科恩拿出文件時(shí)同在會(huì)議室的一位人士表示,，雖然明確威脅說(shuō)會(huì)釋放有害信息,，但這些小伎倆沒(méi)有影響董事會(huì)的決定?！拔募囊鈭D很清楚，”此人表示,。董事們開(kāi)會(huì)前早有準(zhǔn)備,，因?yàn)镋lliott一年前盯上的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手BMC公司有人已經(jīng)提醒過(guò)。Compuware董事說(shuō),，之前用過(guò)的招數(shù)還包括給BMC公司董事的女兒打騷擾電話,。

Elliott對(duì)此拒絕置評(píng)。但一位熟悉該公司的人士表示,，這些技巧原本應(yīng)該“有點(diǎn)搞笑,，結(jié)果卻有點(diǎn)殘酷”，是用一種類似惡作劇的方式提醒董事利益沖突,，也有點(diǎn)無(wú)計(jì)可施的意思,。該人士還表示，事情針對(duì)的是董事,，而不是他的女兒,，雖然最后落實(shí)女孩身上：“我們有條底線。他女兒又沒(méi)在董事會(huì)里,?！?

不過(guò)，這種招數(shù)還是引起一些投資人注意,，例如ValueAct的烏本,，他們擔(dān)心Elliott會(huì)影響到其他出于好意與公司合作的積極投資者，因?yàn)镋lliott做起事來(lái)不顧人道代價(jià),，還喜歡把公司徹底拆分,。“我們的積極投資原則跟Elliott完全不一樣,，”烏本告訴《財(cái)富》,。烏本的對(duì)沖基金在微軟私下進(jìn)行的運(yùn)作已經(jīng)持續(xù)五年，由于在微軟首席執(zhí)行官薩特亞·納德拉帶領(lǐng)下加快了周轉(zhuǎn)速度而受到稱贊,?！癊lliott弄得公司對(duì)公開(kāi)市場(chǎng)都不太感興趣了，”布恩表示，“結(jié)果是上市公司數(shù)量縮水,，私人公司數(shù)量在增加,。”

科恩與Compuware酣戰(zhàn)的同時(shí),，Elliott內(nèi)部也發(fā)生重大變化,。Elliott領(lǐng)導(dǎo)層認(rèn)為科恩的策略體現(xiàn)了公司根本特點(diǎn)，也即勞動(dòng)密集型投資,，五年前他們?nèi)D(zhuǎn)向勞動(dòng)密集投資策略,。Elliott有一幫年輕的基金經(jīng)理，從能源到金屬再到采礦,，每個(gè)人都想在各自行業(yè)復(fù)制科恩的成功,。喬納森·波拉克之前在歐洲和亞洲做封閉式基金，幾年后回到紐約,，現(xiàn)在他將辛格成立公司的原則與新形式結(jié)合起來(lái),，打造出可在Elliott全面推廣也在全球適用的股權(quán)投資策略。

遇到的第一個(gè)重大測(cè)試就是赫斯公司,。赫斯公司當(dāng)時(shí)市值約250億美元,，是家族掌控的石油天然氣企業(yè)，也是Elliott盯上最大的公司,。由于赫斯公司每年圣誕期間會(huì)發(fā)售風(fēng)格獨(dú)特的玩具卡車,，在美國(guó)文化中也頗具懷舊地位。赫斯公司沒(méi)想到引起Elliott注意,。畢竟Elliott只有4%股份,，還不夠資格像美國(guó)證券委員會(huì)提交主動(dòng)投資者13D文件。2013年1月,，Elliott公開(kāi)提出要替換董事會(huì)五名成員,。Elliott表示赫斯公司給高管支付的薪水是全行業(yè)最高，股票收益卻接近谷底,。這是一場(chǎng)“偷襲”,，新澤西州前民主黨州長(zhǎng)托馬斯·凱恩回憶道，當(dāng)時(shí)他是Elliott要替換五名董事會(huì)成員之一,。

赫斯公司作為美國(guó)歷史悠久的企業(yè),，向來(lái)有種難以穿透的感覺(jué)。但Elliott提出的新董事名單簡(jiǎn)直無(wú)懈可擊（包括英國(guó)石油公司和美國(guó)運(yùn)通前首席執(zhí)行官）,，這些人之前跟Elliott都沒(méi)關(guān)系,，所以逼得股東也要認(rèn)真考慮。赫斯公司董事會(huì)成員“比起Elliott提名名單就像替補(bǔ)隊(duì)員一樣,，”賽爾尼奇表示,。凱恩稱,，Elliott告訴一些機(jī)構(gòu)投資者，如果不支持自己提名的候選人,，就等于背棄了誠(chéng)信義務(wù),，而且可能導(dǎo)致法律后果。??

2013年5月年度股東大會(huì)的代理權(quán)投票前夜,，Elliott和赫斯公司的代表躲在休斯頓四季酒店里各自計(jì)算可能得票情況,。晚上10點(diǎn)左右，投票結(jié)果呼之欲出的時(shí)候,，雙方坐到一起整宿商談方案：早上6點(diǎn)半,，赫斯公司宣布董事會(huì)將加入三位Elliott提名的人員。工作23年的凱恩放棄自己的席位,?！巴ㄟ^(guò)如此調(diào)整，Elliott方面顯示出接管大型公司的能力,，就這樣，”凱恩表示,。曾為赫斯家族應(yīng)付積極投資者提供咨詢的銀行家表示,，赫斯家族的失敗不只影響Elliott：“最終結(jié)果出來(lái)后，大家都很開(kāi)心,?！?

在Elliott內(nèi)部，這次巨大的勝利也刺激了所有人神經(jīng),。2015年10月,，Elliott第一次對(duì)零售公司下手，選了Cabela’s,，最后賣給了Bass Pro Shops,。對(duì)科恩來(lái)說(shuō)，最讓人興奮的案例還是美國(guó)資本,。之前Elliott買這只不知名的金融股票只是為了套點(diǎn)利,，但一位同時(shí)發(fā)現(xiàn)美國(guó)資本立刻開(kāi)始防備起來(lái)抵抗積極投資者進(jìn)入，他第一次穿過(guò)辦公室去找科恩,。

兩人立刻按照Elliott標(biāo)準(zhǔn)積極行動(dòng)手冊(cè)對(duì)照了一下,，這家公司是不是被低估了？有沒(méi)有改造空間,？能不能說(shuō)服其他股東需要進(jìn)行變革,？科恩立刻向波拉克和辛格提出可以行動(dòng)，兩人簽字同意,。2015年11月中,，Elliott向美國(guó)資本發(fā)送了公開(kāi)信，同時(shí)宣布持有8.4%股份。九天后美國(guó)資本就投降了,，宣布進(jìn)入出售流程,。這也是Elliott公開(kāi)行動(dòng)收效最快的一次。（六個(gè)月后阿瑞斯資本以34億美元收購(gòu)了美國(guó)資本,。）“說(shuō)明我們的路子是對(duì)的,，”科恩表示?！岸揖哂袛U(kuò)展性,。我覺(jué)得已經(jīng)證明——我們不只是一群技術(shù)專家，專門(mén)做技術(shù)領(lǐng)域,；團(tuán)隊(duì)可以長(zhǎng)期實(shí)踐下去,，在別的行業(yè)和別的地區(qū)一樣能做成?！?

科恩對(duì)協(xié)助打造的公司還是很滿意,。他剛加入Elliott不久，就夢(mèng)想著有一天能經(jīng)常在吃飯時(shí)向同事和顧問(wèn)發(fā)表意見(jiàn),。因?yàn)椴还芩嗌俅纬晒⑵髽I(yè)帶出困境,，促成多少次出售，就缺了點(diǎn)什么：杰斯·科恩希望親自收購(gòu)公司,。

聽(tīng)科恩講述簡(jiǎn)直就像聽(tīng)愛(ài)情故事,。Elliott采取行動(dòng)前花費(fèi)大量時(shí)間和精力研究公司，結(jié)果對(duì)行動(dòng)對(duì)象往往十分了解,，也充滿欣賞,。舉個(gè)例子，Elliott對(duì)EMC花了幾個(gè)月研究這家數(shù)據(jù)存儲(chǔ)公司,，尋求并購(gòu)機(jī)會(huì)前訪問(wèn)了近700個(gè)客戶,。但最后戴爾靠私募股權(quán)公司銀湖資本的資金收購(gòu)EMC后，Elliott就撤出了交易,?？贫飨Ｍ幸惶霦lliott能發(fā)展壯大到自己就能鯨吞大型公司,。

今年秋天科恩的夢(mèng)想終于成真,，Elliott在宣布持有網(wǎng)絡(luò)安全公司Gigamon股份不到六個(gè)月后，以16億美元成功收購(gòu),。這是Elliott第一次單靠自己完成私有化,，對(duì)其在硅谷新設(shè)立的私募股權(quán)公司Evergreen Coast Capital來(lái)說(shuō)也是個(gè)重要里程碑。

但科恩也意識(shí)到,，雖然有點(diǎn)像金融界諷刺故事,，但Elliott尖銳的行事風(fēng)格在大型并購(gòu)時(shí)可能會(huì)變成負(fù)擔(dān)?，F(xiàn)在科恩經(jīng)常找之前辛苦談判時(shí)認(rèn)識(shí)的銀行家和律師咨詢交易機(jī)會(huì)。調(diào)整之后,，合作者紛紛表示對(duì)科恩和Elliott略有改觀,。

舉例來(lái)說(shuō)，Elliott今年4月盯上Athenahealth后,，跟管理層交流時(shí)非常禮貌,，甚至偶爾稱贊。雖然熟悉Athenahealth的人士表示,，Elliott出現(xiàn)得“準(zhǔn)時(shí)準(zhǔn)點(diǎn)”,。有時(shí)候科恩回憶起自己霸道的往日甚至還有些愧疚的跡象?！拔覀兊牟呗院芸赡茈S時(shí)間發(fā)展,，”科恩的老板波拉克表示?！拔覀?cè)趯で蟾薪ㄔO(shè)性的溝通方式,。”

所以Elliott今年進(jìn)攻Arconic時(shí)弄得公司內(nèi)外一地雞毛,。38歲的基金經(jīng)理大衛(wèi)·米勒準(zhǔn)備的攻擊言論比最近其他收購(gòu)都要多,。Elliott準(zhǔn)備了336頁(yè)的幻燈片展示給Arconic股東和公眾，將克萊因菲爾德描述為壟斷者,，撈到錢就想跑。文件還暗指克萊恩菲爾德有個(gè)性缺陷（Arconic痛斥這項(xiàng)指責(zé)“毫無(wú)根據(jù)”）,，導(dǎo)致有人也開(kāi)始懷疑Elliott本身也有些分裂性格,。“問(wèn)題是,，我也不知道會(huì)找來(lái)好人還是壞人,，”曾幫助Arconic抵抗Elliott和其他積極投資者的朱爾·弗蘭克公關(guān)公司的朱爾·弗蘭克表示，此番表述是今年3月他在杜蘭法學(xué)院一場(chǎng)論壇上說(shuō)的,。（今年春天,，米勒升職為Elliott美國(guó)重組部負(fù)責(zé)人。）

從Arconic案例也能看出Elliott動(dòng)用無(wú)窮無(wú)盡資源的能力,。5月,，就在克萊恩菲爾德辭職近一個(gè)月后，Elliott做了件前無(wú)古人后無(wú)來(lái)者的事,。Elliott在發(fā)放紙質(zhì)投票卡的同時(shí),，還發(fā)放了可充電的視頻播放器，比iPad稍小一點(diǎn),，里面預(yù)裝了四分鐘的攻擊性廣告,，稱克萊恩菲爾德“在標(biāo)普500指數(shù)公司里履歷堪稱最差”,，投資者打開(kāi)包裹就自動(dòng)播放。播放器送給了成千上萬(wàn)零售投資者,，據(jù)代理權(quán)爭(zhēng)奪顧問(wèn)估計(jì),，此舉花掉Elliott近300萬(wàn)美元。曾親身參與的人士介紹說(shuō),，Arconic稱為了自?；?800萬(wàn)美元，這么算起來(lái)Elliott花得只會(huì)多不會(huì)少,。兩輪談判失敗后,，辛格也少有的露了面，最終Arconic同意增加Elliott提名四位董事的三位,?！爸灰獙?duì)手是Elliott，形勢(shì)就完全不一樣,，” Schulte律師事務(wù)所的律師魏恩加滕表示,。“他們不眠不休,，有錢,，而且為了贏不惜一切代價(jià)?！?

If not for the watermelons, Elliott might have won in Korea.

In the summer of 2015, the activist hedge fund founded by Paul Singer had gone to war in the Republic of Samsung to stop the South Korean conglomerate from going through with what Singer considered to be an unfair deal. Elliott Management, the hedge fund that Singer launched 40 years ago and still leads today, was then a large investor in Samsung’s construction division. The trouble started when Jay Y. Lee, the son of the coma-bound chairman of the Samsung chaebol, started to consolidate power over Korea’s biggest company. When the younger Lee moved to have one part of the family empire buy the construction unit for $8 billion, Elliott balked at what it considered an absurdly low price and began lobbying other shareholders to reject it. Investing farther away from its New York home than ever before, the hedge fund faced a canny opponent with enormous influence in its home country. Samsung went so far as to publish illustrations online depicting Singer, with a vulture beak, accompanied by rhetoric that Singer perceived as anti-Semitic.

In the end, though, it was sugar that may have swayed the voters. As the meeting to approve the deal neared, Samsung representatives went door to door to meet shareholders, bearing watermelons and Korean walnut cakes, in a plea for their votes. The merger passed. Elliott, in a rare surrender, sold its shares a few weeks later.

But the story doesn’t end there. As South Korean authorities unraveled a corruption scandal that toppled the country’s President earlier this year, the trail traced back to Samsung. In August, Lee was convicted of bribery. To ensure Elliott’s defeat, Samsung had given a $830,000 dressage horse to the daughter of a key political influencer, who in turn cajoled the National Pension Service—one of the world’s largest pension funds—to vote for the merger. Today, the Samsung heir is in jail, and Elliott has been vindicated. “I had no idea when we were in the midst of this, that this situation was going to lead to the impeachment of the President,” says Jonathan Pollock, co-CEO of Elliott, alongside Singer. It happens that in pursuing misbehaving companies, Elliott sometimes ends up sniffing out nefarious behavior: “Unfortunately, some of the people involved in these situations tend to ignore the rights of shareholders and creditors, and act entitled to do whatever they want.”

The Samsung outcome turned out to be a watershed moment not just for Elliott, but for shareholder activism. Activists use their ownership stakes in public companies to pressure them to change in order to boost returns—whether by restructuring their businesses, shaking up management, or even putting themselves up for sale. Such shareholder agitation has become more common in recent years as a widening pool of global investors seek a competitive edge. And in that world, the 40-year-old Elliott has emerged as both the largest and most active of activist hedge funds, and one that almost always seems to get its way.

“The Elliott book of deals is probably the most instructive, and it’s also one of the most far, far reaching,” says Marty Lipton, founding partner of the law firm Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and inventor of the poison-pill corporate defense strategy, who has lately faced Elliott more frequently and on more fronts than ever before. “They’ve been enormously successful, and they are a major factor in activism today.”

In the past five years, Elliott has launched activist campaigns at more than 50 companies—19 this year alone—in at least a dozen countries. During that span, the battle with Samsung is the only one that went all the way to a vote, and the only one in which the firm didn’t get what it wanted—a sign of just how effective Elliott is at pressuring management to agree to its demands. At the same time, Elliott’s assets have nearly doubled to roughly $39 billion, including $5 billion it raised in a 23-hour span in May, making it more than twice the size of the second-biggest activist hedge fund, Dan Loeb’s Third Point.

That war chest, along with Elliott’s 400-?person staff, has rendered the firm virtually impossible for adversaries—from industry titans to nation states—to beat in a fight. Warren Buffett learned that the hard way this summer, when Elliott used its financial might to successfully block Berkshire Hathaway’s bid for energy company Oncor, by buying up company debt and pledging to exercise its creditor veto right. And Elliott has lately sought to clone its winning strategy: It’s on track to launch about 50% more activist campaigns this year than in 2016—nearly three times as many as any other major activist fund—including, in October, two in a single day.

Elliott’s winning ways are in stark contrast to many of its activist peers, whose recent attempts to take on Fortune 500 companies have failed miserably, from Bill Ackman’s landslide loss in a proxy contest with ADP (ADP, +0.49%), to Greenlight Capital founder David Einhorn’s strikeout at General Motors (GM, +0.55%) earlier this year. Even Trian Partners’ Nelson Peltz, who narrowly won a blockbuster proxy campaign with P&G (PG, -1.27%) this fall, is still feuding with that company to accept him onto its board. And Elliott, whose 13.4% annual rate of return over its four-decade history is unmatched among hedge funds, has also outperformed at a time when that asset class has woefully lagged the market. The firm’s flagship fund, Elliott Associates, has returned more than 9.7% annualized over the past five years, compared with just 4.7% for hedge funds overall.

As Elliott ramps up its activism to an unprecedented scale, it is also accumulating a growing body count of deposed executives—not to mention ousted heads of state—who dared fight it. Just last year, Elliott finally prevailed in a 15-year battle to force Argentina to repay its bonds—a saga in which the hedge fund at one point seized an Argentine navy tall ship with the sailors still on it. A few months after Elliott finally collected its $2.4 billion windfall, Argentina indicted its former President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who had led her country into default in 2014 rather than pay Elliott what it owed (a decision that had also cost her party reelection). “Elliott’s the only one that has effected regime change in two different sovereign countries,” says Chris Cernich, managing director of Strategic Governance Advisors, who counsels executives on proxy contests. “They were successful at being right, and very publicly right.”

In their conviction that they’re right, however, Elliott has become adept at wielding pressure on its opponents in ways their foes say can cross ethical boundaries. Through interviews with more than 40 people who have dealt with the hedge fund—including bankers, advisers, board members of various companies, and current and former employees of the firm—Fortune has learned previously unreported details that reveal just how far Elliott will go to win.

To many observers, Elliott appeared vindicated yet again this spring, when a soccer ball showed up at Paul Singer’s door. In January, the hedge fund had publicly called for the ouster of Klaus Kleinfeld, the CEO of aerospace manufacturer Arconic (ARNC, +1.95%), which split from Alcoa last year. Elliott objected to the company’s poor stock returns during his tenure, along with his generous compensation. Arconic refused to fire the CEO, and the stage was set for a proxy fight.

Four months later, Kleinfeld responded in the form of that soccer ball, sent by courier directly to Singer’s office, across town from Arconic’s New York headquarters. He enclosed a letter on his personal stationery, in which he sardonically alluded to some “l(fā)astingly legendary” partying Singer had supposedly done while attending the 2006 World Cup in Berlin. In a postscript, Kleinfeld insinuated that the hedge fund manager’s alleged debauchery had included wearing Native American headgear and warbling “Singin’ in the Rain” in a public fountain. He pledged to send Singer a feathered headdress next.

By Elliott’s telling, it was the corporate equivalent of a bloody finger in a box. “We do understand Dr. Kleinfeld to be making veiled suggestions that he might intimidate or extort Mr. Singer,” Elliott’s general counsel, Richard Zabel, wrote to Arconic’s board. Less than a week later, Arconic’s board gave Kleinfeld no choice but to resign. Elliott, it seemed, had lucked into its desired outcome out of the blue, by way of its opponent’s unforced error.

Behind the scenes, however, the hedge fund had been waging a sort of Cold War with Kleinfeld and Arconic, engaging in covert espionage ranging across the Eastern seaboard and all the way to Europe, Fortune has learned.

For Kleinfeld, it started when a pair of people who identified themselves as private investigators showed up at the door of his next-door neighbor in New York’s Westchester County about a year ago, inquiring about “l(fā)oud parties” at his house. As Elliott ramped up its pressure on Arconic, friends and colleagues of Kleinfeld, along with board members of Arconic, reported more suspicious run-ins: Others who live near the CEO were followed to a local restaurant by strangers who then approached the couple; they claimed to be considering investing with Kleinfeld, but first had a few questions. The German-born executive declined to speak with Fortune, but five people familiar with the events confirmed this account. They all believed Elliott to be behind it: “We thought they crossed the line,” one of the people says.

The most unnerving incident was when one of Kleinfeld’s daughters, a student at Harvard Business School, was approached on campus by someone who asked to “friend” her on Facebook; the person also spoke to her friends, fishing for information about her family. While lawyers and advisers say it’s common to hire investigators to do opposition research in the context of a proxy campaign, executives’ kids—of any age—are typically considered off-limits.

Elliott does not seem to share those qualms: On at least three occasions, according to both court testimony and the accounts of seven people who spoke with Fortune,children of people facing the hedge fund’s attack have been pulled into the fray in some way, in an apparent bid to gain either information on or leverage against their parents. In an instance involving Norbert Essing, an Arconic PR consultant in Germany, neighbors of his children in London received visits from people asking about drug abuse by them or their father. This happened shortly after Elliott publicly blamed Essing for helping or encouraging Kleinfeld to write his soccer ball letter. (Essing denies the accusation.)

Elliott, which offered limited access to two of its executives for this article, declined to comment on the use of private investigators in its activist campaigns; a person close to the firm denies that information from or about anyone’s kids was part of the scope of its Arconic research effort. But in the insular world of activist hedge funds, Elliott appears to have a reputation for particularly hardball tactics, several sources say. Distaste for this no-holds-barred approach even led one prominent activist, Jeff Ubben, the CEO of hedge fund ValueAct, to stick up for Kleinfeld during a panel discussion on activism at the Milken Institute conference in May.

Still, dirt-digging and other aggressive tactics, while controversial, have the benefit of exerting power beyond what money can buy. And they shed light on just what distinguishes Elliott from its less successful peers. “To do activism really, really well, you have to be not only smart and persistent, but you have to be willing,” says David Rosewater, who advises companies as the global head of Morgan Stanley’s shareholder activism and corporate defense group, and who has previously represented Elliott as an attorney. “Not everybody is willing to be the bad guy.”

Elliott Management was founded in 1977 by Paul Elliott Singer, a lawyer by training who found he could use the court system to great gain as an investor in bankruptcy situations and arbitrage. Conservative in almost every sense of the word, the billionaire Singer, now 73, insists on hedging all his investments to reduce the risk of loss, and prizes “manual efforts”—in other words, old-fashioned elbow grease—as the defining characteristic of his investment style.

A powerful GOP donor who split with his party by funding the “Never Trump” movement—and by supporting same-sex marriage—Singer is also obsessed about his own and his employees’ physical safety, according to those who know him well. Elliott largely bans staff from social media; with few exceptions, employees cannot post pictures of themselves online—not even an official headshot—making them virtual ghosts in the digital age. The precaution is meant to protect them from anyone who might hold a grudge against the firm. “Paul has always been paranoid about security,” says one Elliott investor, who asked not to be identified for fear of offending Singer. In an extreme extension of that philosophy, Singer has even hedged his Manhattan headquarters, maintaining a backup version of the five-floor offices in New Jersey, just in case.

In the 1980s and ’90s, Elliott applied its acumen primarily to distressed debt and other more esoteric securities where relatively few Wall Street investors ventured. But the modern history of Elliott’s activism begins in 2004 with the arrival of Jesse Cohn. Now 37, Cohn is Elliott’s enfant terrible; a car fanatic and triathlete from Long Island who can talk so quickly it sometimes seems like he’s on fast-forward. A self-described computer-camp geek, Cohn spent two years as an M&A banker at Morgan Stanleybefore joining Elliott. That’s where he started writing letters to small tech companies, urging them to put themselves up for auction to garner big gains for their shareholders.

Cohn’s fanboy-meets-dealmaker affect earned him a reputation as a bit of a whippersnapper. In 2010, in a letter to the board of Novell, he boasted of earning one of the company’s IT certifications when he was 14—a charming bit of common ground that shared the pages with a hostile bid to buy the firm. The brash move worked—Novell was sold to private equity—and Cohn’s formula impressed his bosses enough that they promoted him to head all of its U.S. equity activism. Cohn’s campaigns have resulted in the takeouts or buyouts of more than a dozen companies, including BMC Software, Informatica, LifeLock and, biggest of all, EMC, which Dell acquired for $67 billion in 2015. “I don’t know if anyone has any more experience than he does prosecuting activist campaigns,” says Chris Young, head of contested situations at Credit Suisse, who has known Cohn since the latter started at Elliott.

While Singer eschews sitting on corporate boards, Cohn sits on four, and has become so integral to the firm that some of Elliott’s investors mistakenly believe Cohn is Singer’s nephew. While Singer seldom appears in public (he declined to be interviewed for this article) and rarely takes part in negotiations with companies the firm targets, Cohn is often on the front lines. “Paul is the final decision maker on lots of these issues, but Jesse is the guy, and everyone in the activist community knows who he is,” says Marc Weingarten, a partner and cochair of the shareholder activism group at law firm Schulte Roth & Zabel who has represented Elliott.

In private, people sitting across the table from Cohn have seen another side of him, that of a maestro in the art of applying strategic pressure. That aspect of him bubbled into public view with Compuware, the Detroit-based business software maker that eventually sold to private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $2.4 billion in 2014 as a result of Elliott’s campaign.

In September 2013, a delegation from the Compuware board flew to New York to meet with Elliott about its demands for the company. Cohn opened the meeting by casually flipping through a six-inch-thick manila folder of purportedly embarrassing information on his guests, which included former GM CEO Fritz Henderson. Bill Grabe, an advisory director at private equity firm General Atlantic who sat on Compuware’s board at the time, would later testify in arbitration proceedings that Cohn unabashedly brought Henderson’s daughter into the conversation. “And you know, you have a daughter that’s doing this and whatnot,” Grabe recalled Cohn saying, paraphrasing the young fund manager. “You’re dealing with somebody whose tactics it is to intimidate, to splinter, to do everything they can to be disruptive,” Grabe testified. In the same case, then–Compuware CEO Bob Paul testified that in a follow-up phone call, Cohn dropped a “veiled threat” that he knew Paul kept an Aston Martin in his garage, saying, “By the way, love that English car you’re driving.”

These encounters, first disclosed during a wrongful termination dispute with Compuware cofounder Peter Karmanos Jr., have provided ammunition for Karmanos’s current suit in Michigan state court, accusing Elliott of “blackmailing” the directors into selling the company. “Elliott is taking advantage of the situation,” Karmanos tells Fortune, “and then when they wanted to push it a little harder, they bend the rules.” Karmanos started Compuware in 1973 with a few hundred dollars in tax refund checks. He had already announced his retirement from the board when Elliott launched its campaign, but was fired as a consultant a few months later for saying publicly that he “would tell the hedge fund to go fuck themselves”—comments he says he does not regret. “It’s hard to watch it just get torn apart by those jerks in New York,” he says.

A person who was in the room when Cohn brought out the dossiers says the ploy had no influence on the board’s decisions, though it was unmistakably a threat to release damaging information. “There was no question as to what the intent was of that folder,” the person says. The directors had come to the meeting prepared, after their counterparts at rival BMC, which Elliott had come after a year earlier, warned them of similar tactics. That effort included a disturbing phone call to a BMC director’s daughter, the Compuware directors say.

Elliott declined to comment. But a person close to the firm says the shtick was designed “to be sort of funny, but sort of brutal,” a kind of shame game cataloging the board’s conflicts of interest, and conveying that the jig was up. The intel itself implicated the director, not his daughter, even if she was the source of it, the person adds: “We draw the line there. His daughter doesn’t sit on the board.”

Still, such maneuvers are concerning to investors like ValueAct’s Ubben, who worry that Elliott may undermine the ability of other activists to work with companies in good faith, whether by its indifference to the human toll of its campaigns or because of its apparent affinity for knocking companies out of existence. “Our form of activism could not be more different than Elliott,” Ubben tells Fortune. Ubben’s hedge fund’s behind-closed-doors campaign at Microsoft (MSFT, -0.35%), now going on five years, is credited with expediting the tech giant’s turnaround under CEO Satya Nadella. “Elliott is single-handedly making the public markets less attractive to companies,” Ubben says, “and we see it in the shrinking number of public companies and the growth in private ownership.”

While Cohn was in the trenches with Compuware, a sea change was taking hold inside Elliott. Elliott’s top brass saw Cohn’s strategy as an obvious extension of the firm’s bread-and-butter, labor-intensive investing, and five years ago they kicked it into high gear. Elliott had a generation of young managers eager to do what Cohn had done in their respective industries, from energy to metals and mining. Jonathan Pollock, who had practiced closed-end fund arbitrage in Europe and Asia, had returned to New York a few years earlier, and now fused the principles upon which Singer had built the firm into an equity strategy that could travel across Elliott and the globe.

The first big test was Hess. With a market cap of about $25 billion at the time, the family-run oil and gas empire was the largest company Elliott had ever gone after, and it occupied a nostalgic place in American culture thanks to the novelty toy trucks it released each year at Christmastime. Hess never saw Elliott coming. Elliott owned only 4% of Hess’s stock—not enough to necessitate an activist warning-shot 13D filing with the SEC—in January 2013 when the fund went public with a proxy campaign to replace five of the board’s directors. Elliott alleged that Hess was paying execs some of the highest compensation packages in the industry, while stock returns were near the bottom. It was “a sneak attack,” recalls Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey and one of the Hess directors in Elliott’s crosshairs.

Hess had an aura of impenetrability as one of America’s last dynastic corporations. But the hedge fund nominated an unimpeachable lineup of new directors (including former CEOs of BP and American Express), none of whom worked for Elliott, forcing shareholders to evaluate its arguments on merit. The Hess board “l(fā)ooked like the junior varsity B team when you compared them to the Elliott slate,” Cernich says. Elliott, Kean claims, told some institutional shareholders that failing to support its candidates would be tantamount to neglecting their fiduciary duty—an allegation with potential legal consequences.

On the eve of the proxy vote at the May 2013 annual meeting, representatives of Elliott and Hess holed up counting incoming votes in the Four Seasons hotel in Houston. It was only around 10 p.m., when the outcome was still too close to call, that the two sides came together, working through the night on a settlement: At 6:30 a.m., Hess announced that it would add three of Elliott’s nominees to its board. Kean, after 23 years of service, relinquished his seat. “By taking that on, they showed that they could move up the weight class to take on bigger companies, and that’s that,” Kean says. The Hess family’s defeat also reverberated beyond Elliott, says a banker who advises companies on facing activists: “Once that broke, I think everybody was like, party on.”

Inside Elliott, the mounting victories catalyzed the activist impulse. In October 2015, the hedge fund took on its first retail company with Cabela’s, which eventually sold itself to Bass Pro Shops. For Cohn, the moment of enlightenment came with American Capital. Elliott had originally invested in the obscure financial stock as part of an arbitrage trade, but when a colleague saw that the company was laying groundwork to shield itself from activist investors, he went across the hall to Cohn for the first time.

Running the company through Elliott’s activism checklist—Is the company undervalued? Can it be fixed? Can you convince other shareholders of the need for change?—Cohn brought the idea of a campaign to Pollock and Singer, who immediately signed off. In mid-November 2015, Elliott sent a public letter to American Capital while simultaneously revealing an 8.4% stake; the company caved just nine days later, announcing it was beginning a sale process. It was the quickest turnaround of any of Elliott’s public campaigns. (Ares Capital acquired the firm six months later for $3.4 billion.) “It showed that the process really works,” says Cohn. “And it’s scalable. That’s part of what I think we’ve proven—we’re not just a group of tech people doing just tech trades; we’re a team that’s able to take what we’ve built and do it over a long period of time, and roll it out to other industries and geographies, too.”

Still, Cohn wasn’t quite satisfied with the machine he’d helped build. From his earliest days at Elliott, he’d harbored a dream that he’d frequently express over dinners with colleagues and advisers. For as many times as he’d pushed companies onto the block, as many sales as he’d secured, there was something missing: Jesse Cohn wanted to buy companies himself.

To hear Cohn tell it, he’d fallen in love. The time and effort Elliott put in to researching companies before launching campaigns often imbued the activists with an intimate knowledge of, and deep appreciation for, their targets. With EMC, for example, Elliott had spent months getting to know the data storage company, interviewing some 700 of its customers before launching a campaign urging it to pursue M&A opportunities. But when computing giant Dell, with financing from its private equity owner Silver Lake, bought EMC, Elliott was shut out of the deal. One day, Cohn hoped, Elliott would be big enough to afford whales of its own.

Cohn’s dream finally came true this fall, when Elliott acquired cybersecurity firm Gigamon for $1.6 billion, less than six months after unveiling a position in the stock. It was the first time Elliott had taken an entire public company private by itself, a major milestone for its relatively new Silicon Valley–based private equity arm, Evergreen Coast Capital.

But in a bit of high-finance irony, Elliott’s reputation for sharp elbows, Cohn realized, could be a liability in achieving these new goals. Cohn is now often sourcing leads for deals from the very bankers and lawyers who sat across from him during tough negotiations in the past. And with that adjustment, people who’ve worked with him say, has come a newfound sensitivity to how both he and Elliott are perceived.

At Athenahealth, for example, which Elliott targeted this spring, Cohn has been polite and even complimentary in his interactions with management, despite being a “regular drumbeat” of a presence, according to people close to the health IT company. On occasion, Cohn has been known to let a tinge of guilt creep in when he reflects on his more swashbuckling days. “Our tactics probably evolved over time,” says Pollock, who is Cohn’s boss. “We’re looking more toward this constructive engagement approach.”

“Our tactics probably evolved over time. We’re looking more toward this constructive engagement approach.”

- Jonathan Pollock, co-CEO, Elliott Management

That’s why Elliott’s attack on Arconic this year ruffled feathers inside and outside the firm. Led by 38-year-old portfolio manager Dave Miller, the campaign rhetoric packed more vitriol than any of Elliott’s campaigns in recent memory. Elliott’s 336-slide deck, distributed to Arconic shareholders and released publicly, depicted Kleinfeld as the Monopoly man, running away with money bags. It also alluded to Kleinfeld having personality abnormalities (a claim Arconic dismissed as an “unsubstantiated” ad hominem attack), prompting some to observe that Elliott could have a split personality of its own. “The problem is, I don’t know whether I’m going to get the mensch or the schmuck,” Joele Frank, of the eponymous public relations firm that has helped companies fight Elliott and other activists, commented at a panel at a Tulane law school event in March. (Miller, for his part, was promoted to head of U.S. restructuring at Elliott this spring.)

The Arconic campaign also illustrated Elliott’s power to deploy a seemingly bottomless amount of resources. In May, nearly a month after Kleinfeld resigned, Elliott did something no one has done before or since. Along with paper proxy-vote cards, the hedge fund mailed rechargeable video players, slightly smaller than an iPad, loaded with a four-minute attack ad—alleging Kleinfeld “has the worst track record of any CEO in the S&P 500 over his tenure”—that played automatically when investors opened the package. Sent to tens of thousands of large retail shareholders, the gimmick alone cost Elliott as much as $3 million, proxy contest advisers estimate. While Arconic disclosed it spent $58 million defending itself, it’s likely the hedge fund spent nearly as much if not more in the attack, according to people who worked on the campaign. After two failed rounds of settlement talks in which Singer made a rare personal appearance, Arconic ultimately agreed to add three of Elliott’s four picks to its board. “When Elliott shows up, it’s a completely different ball game,” says Weingarten, the Schulte lawyer. “They are relentless. They have the money, and they will spare no expense to ensure that they win.”

從Elliott角度來(lái)看，采取什么方法都無(wú)可厚非,，具體看對(duì)手反抗的情況,。波拉克指出Arconic跟赫斯公司和三星類似，都是動(dòng)過(guò)真刀真槍的,?！拔艺J(rèn)為四個(gè)人進(jìn)去三個(gè)算不得成功，”他表示,。（一位接近Arconic的人士表示,，“我們沒(méi)打算對(duì)付他們，只是表示不同意,?！保?

銀行家表示，Arconic的案例在其他公司董事會(huì)上會(huì)引起反響,，也讓人開(kāi)始重視Elliott下個(gè)目標(biāo),，對(duì)于拒絕Elliott初步意向的公司來(lái)說(shuō)也是個(gè)警告,。不管符不符合公司理念，Elliott無(wú)情的傳統(tǒng)依舊貫穿在每次行動(dòng)中,。跟比爾·阿克曼或丹·勒布成立的積極投資公司不一樣,，保羅·辛格成立的基金已經(jīng)培養(yǎng)出一大批積極投資專業(yè)人士，可以擾動(dòng)世界各地的企業(yè)王國(guó),?！坝幸环N公司能從創(chuàng)始人手中活下來(lái)，也比較有道理,，”治理顧問(wèn)賽爾尼奇表示,，“就是能夠?qū)⒛芰托食杀锻卣箶U(kuò)張的公司?！?

波拉克立下承諾,，“我們會(huì)一直暗中觀察?！备骷夜径聲?huì),，小心了。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

本文另一版本將發(fā)表于2017年12月15日出版的《財(cái)富》雜志,，標(biāo)題為《為了勝利不惜一切代價(jià)》,。

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

From Elliott’s perspective, the approach was warranted, given the resistance they’d encountered. Pollock notes that Arconic was one of just a handful of its campaigns, along with Hess and Samsung, where a true battle ensued. “I don’t count the three or four as a success, necessarily,” he says. (Adds someone close to Arconic, “We didn’t decide to take them on, we just said we disagree.”)

Bankers say the Arconic presentation has made the rounds in other companies’ board rooms, and looms large over Elliott’s subsequent campaigns, a warning of what can happen to those who resist its overtures. Whether it fits the firm’s ideals or not, Elliott’s ruthless legacy continues to color its endeavors. Unlike the activist firms run by Bill Ackman or Dan Loeb, the fund Paul Singer founded has raised an army of activists who can influence corporate fiefdoms everywhere. “There’s some sense that there’s an institution that survives the founder,” says Cernich, the governance adviser, “and that it expands and multiplies the power and effectiveness of the organization.”

Promises Pollock, “We’ll be around for a while.” Boards, beware.

A version of this article appears in the Dec. 15, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline “Whatever It Takes to Win.”