Thomas Hudson

Hudson's Pirate Capital is one of the first activist shareholders. Has had some phenomenal deals done, and some marginal ones, but overall has a great hit ratio, going after companies with strong tangible value hidden in balance sheets and bad strategy. The biggest dives so far have been Pep Boys and GenCorp. In Pep Boys deal Hudson shadowed two players who already where in the stock, Jim Mitarotonda of Barrington Capital and Armen Grigorian of Defoe Capital, and with last entry but with bigger bang, was able to tilt the company into the road map already in place by Mitarotanda and Grigorian. The Board was taken over, the CEO is gone. James Mitarotonda is the new Chairman and interim CEO. Pep Boys, in addition to being one of Pirate's largest dives, shows also that Hudson is not the "buccaneer" people say he is. He is more cautious and more collegial when it comes to large and defining deals. Pep Boys had other players, under surface: Ramius and DB Zwirn, for starters. Pirate Capital was more of a consensus sealer of the deal. Deals that he has done: Brinks Company, CKE Retaurants, Allied Defense and James River.