Activist investors bump into each other in campaigns

By Soyoung Kim and Olivia Oran NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuters) – When Barington Capital Group in October reported a stake of more than 2 percent in Darden Restaurants Inc with a vow to shake up the company, another investment firm was caught off guard. A few months prior to that, an activist fund was preparing to go public with proposals to shake up Aeropostale Inc and was amassing a stake, only to learn that Sycamore Partners had taken an 8 percent stake in the teen clothing retailer. The examples show how investors are increasingly bumping into one another in corporate campaigns, as more funds are starting to follow the playbook of aggressive shareholders such as Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman, who use their stock positions to urge companies to sell, break up, buy back shares or oust management. Investors and their lawyers say that it's getting tougher to find easy targets as investors are chasing the same "low-hanging fruit" – companies that have poor corporate governance or performance and are vulnerable to calls for change.