Eric Knight generally doesn’t do things by halves. The targets for his shareholder activism are large – Royal Dutch Shell, Suez – and his campaigns, while billed as constructive dialogue, can be loud.

Knight Vinke Asset Management’s latest tilt, at HSBC, is noteworthy, not just because of the size of the company – Shell, after all, was no pygmy – but because the credit squeeze has driven many more highly-leveraged activists from the field or forced them to lower their expectations. Knight Vinke, with the backing of the well-endowed Calpers pension fund, is less constrained. That’s a good thing: Mr Knight’s record in geeing up underperforming companies can yield benefits for all shareholders.