I see. I believe my point still stands though. Most shareholders probably don't even know that Frontier exists.
This is true when it comes to funds, those that invest in the fund won't necessarily know where their money is invested unless they really read up on the reports they get from the investment company. Funds tend to invest in hundreds of individual companies to spread the risk (and all funds have their own criteria for investing). The fund manager and his analyst team however will most certainly know about Frontier. However they are looking at financial performance, sales, costs, EBITDA etc... not whether ED has bugs or if a free content release is delayed or if an open letter was sent to ED by some salty wannabe space jockeys.
Individual shareholders will definitely know about Frontier as they have directly invested (bought shares) in the company, but the same is true of them...they won't care about FCs, bugs or small seismic charges.
At the end of the day it comes down to dividend payments on shares. Frontier will release predicted results every 6 months, what earnings and profits they think they will make in the following 6 months. Pressure on FD will only start to happen when those predicted profits and dividends fail to materialise and the company under performs.
From what I've read their profits and dividend payments have been on track if not slightly above their predictions so I think their investors are happy.
And no, I don't think having shareholders is the reason ED is in a bit of a mess. As long as ARX does what it was meant to do and increases cosmetic sales (which it probably will) then FD are totally on track as far as the investors are concerned.
The kind of investors you want to be wary of are venture capitalists...these guys (if they are heavily invested enough) are the ones that will change the direction of a company, put huge pressure on a company to increase pricing, cut costs, restructure...all in an effort increase their margins in the short-mid term, even if it eventually breaks the company further down the road.