SHAREHOLDERS: Score One for The Gadfly

Ask CEOs who is the last person they want to see at their annual board meetings, and the answer will be unanimous: Evelyn Y. Davis. With small holdings in some 120 firms, Davis attends 50 or more meetings each spring, needling executives with her comments on company policies and repeated calls for points of order. Her past targets range from Henry Ford II to T. Boone Pickens.

Last week the corporate gadfly claimed a victory against the world's largest corporation. General Motors' board of directors agreed to Davis' demand for a policy that would ban payment of above-market prices for stock held by a potential corporate raider. Davis first made her anti-greenmail proposal three years ago, after GM paid H. Ross Perot $743 million dollars for his stock -- almost twice its trading value. Davis, who also publishes Highlights and Lowlights, a newsletter about corporate policies, believes that GM had no choice but to accept her proposal, which had substantial support among stockholders. Says she: "I was in the driver's seat."