Calls and emails have started to arrive as investors plan activist situations, for current projects or for annual meetings in 2016. With even more activist managers at work, these days portfolio managers field several inquiries each week. 

If you're a PM stuck with a poor performer, you'd like to take the call. You'd love to see positive changes there. You're inclined to at least listen, and maybe support the investor's plan. If you're the activist investor, you'd like the PM to take the call as you round up support for your thesis and proposed changes. 

As all this transpires, how do these shareholders avoid forming a dreaded "group"? In a current blog post, we suggest what to do, and not to do, to help comply with the SEC regulations that apply to these kinds of discussions.