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Chapman Capital is a $300 million dollar L.A. based activist fund run by Bob Chapman. Chapman is the colorful founder of the “13-D filing” that most activist hedge funds use today. Over the past 10 years, Chapman Capital has agitated successfully for the restructuring or sale of over 20 publicly-traded companies.

He has been in the game since the late 1980s but following a surfing accident in October 2003, Chapman returned money to his investors in Chap-Cap, a fund that produced a 20% annual performance from 1996 to 2003, and embarked on a 49-nation travel odyssey. He continued to manage an activist side pocket during his sabbatical with a net return of 55% and 61.9% in 2004 and 2005, respectively.

Chapman recently disclosed in a street.com article that “there are an estimated 11,000 public companies in America alone. I would argue that at least 10% of these potential activist targets are managed and overseen by executives and directors whose replacement, through 13D filings, proxy fights or company auctions, would result in the doubling in stock price upside that Chapman Capital seeks in its activist targets.

When asked about any lessons he learned while on sabbatical, his response was this:
“Two lessons: Capitalism is contagious and a global inevitability; and China's economy is no miracle. Combine thousands of years of pent-up consumer demand with a government allowing businesses to have near-zero environmental and labor costs, and you get the world's next hegemony. However, those same images of 60-year old men digging ditches in Cambodia for the one-dollar-a-day compensation they were thankful to earn will end up haunting the lavishly and wastefully overcompensated public company fiduciaries I plan to target....”

As of 3-31-08 filing.

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