A successful hedge fund manager, Daniel S. Loeb is founder of Third Point LLC, a New York based hedge fund that manages more than $3.5 billion in assets. The New York–based company has managed to achieve an average annual return of 28.9 percent since 1995. Mr. Loeb has made a name for himself in the business world by writing public letters in which he expresses disapproval of the performance and conduct of other financial executives. His backers claim that his letter writing can be called effective shareholder activism; his detractors complain that his letters are distracting for executives and uncomfortable for investors. Less than 10% of Third Point's $3.8 billion is spent for shareholder activism. Five feet nine inches tall and weighing 158 pounds, Mr. Loeb is a practitioner of Asthanga Yoga and travels to a yoga school in Mysore, India, every 18 months.

A graduate of Columbia University; Mr. Loeb had joined Citicorp before founding Third Point. In addition, he is known to enjoy art collection, yoga and surfing. He earned a 500% profit when he sold a painting by Martin Kippenberger in 2005. Always having a big mouth, he hectored the bullies at Paul Re-vere Junior High School in his native Los Angeles when he was just 12. After the kids threatened to beat him up, he used his wallet to hire a classmate as his bodyguard. Even today, he is staking millions of dollars on his sharp tongue. He is now Wall Street’s merchant of venom, pillorying chief executive officers who don’t make him enough money. His weapons are his public letters filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, bemoaning the management failures of companies he’s invested in. Mr. Loeb bets on stocks, and occasionally even against them, and then agitates to drive their prices in his favor.

Mr. Loeb can be distinguished for his hyper-kinetic and hyper-public ways of thinking. He makes public his grievances, and rather than gathering shareholder proxies to swing corporate votes like many other activist shareholders do, he prefers the option of heckling the management.