Cos. Want to Dose Activist Investors With Stronger Poison Pill

In an attempt to to reduce the influence of activist shareholders who may try to take over control of a company without actually purchasing traditional stock, some corporations are taking measures to strengthen the so-called "poison pill" many employ to make such takeovers difficult.

"Louisiana-Pacific Corp. and Micrel Inc. have reportedly changed their shareholder-rights plans—the formal name of the 'poison pill'— to include derivatives, or swaps, when calculating levels of 'beneficial ownership' that would trigger their poison pill," writes the reports the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.

Under Louisiana-Pacific's new plan, the company will issue rights to all other holders that can be converted to stock if an investor increases his or her derivatives stake to 15 percent, the newspaper notes.