Jenny Johnson, one of Wall Street’s most powerful women: ‘It’s a huge risk to the US if China controls the key minerals’

Jenny Johnson, one of Wall Street’s most powerful women: ‘It’s a huge risk to the US if China controls the key minerals’

Jenny Johnson was at the movies with her kids when her telephone rang. She left the screening room and amid the scent of freshly made popcorn, took the call. “What’s your final offer?” said Nelson Peltz on the other end of the line, according to the Financial Times. The activist investor owned 10% of fund manager Legg Mason and wanted to squeeze the maximum value from his shareholding. The CEO of Franklin Templeton answered with the figure that her board had approved for the firm’s takeover bid: $4.5 billion. That amount, to which another $2 billion of Legg Mason’s debt was added, became the highest sum ever paid in a corporate transaction by the investment firm that was founded by Johnson’s grandfather in 1947, and one of largest in the history of the asset management industry. After hanging up, the executive returned to her seat and finished watching the movie.

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