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Greenmail or greenmailing is a financial maneuver where investors buy enough shares in a target company to threaten a hostile takeover, prompting the target company to buy back the shares at a premium to prevent the takeover.[1]
Corporate raids involve hostile takeovers of undervalued companies, sometimes through asset stripping or pressuring the sale of valuable assets like real estate. Greenmailers may offer to sell back their shares to the target company at a premium, resulting in losses for the company and its shareholders.
The tactic was used by investors such as T. Boone Pickens and Sir James Goldsmith in the 1980s, who made profits by pressuring companies into repurchasing shares at a premium. For instance, Goldsmith's group acquired stakes in companies like St. Regis, prompting buybacks at a higher price and yielding substantial profits.
Greenmail is a complex corporate strategy, but legal restrictions and counter-tactics, like imposing limits on formal bids and a 50% excise tax on gains in the United States, have made it less common since the early 1990s.