The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition that experts say 1,500 recently announced job losses at Suncor Energy are an example of the type of "collateral damage" that can occur when an activist investor comes calling. A Canadian Press dispatch to the POst says that the Calgary oil company confirmed the job reductions Thursday, less than two months after new chief executive officer Rich Kruger took the reins at Suncor with a mandate to reduce costs and improve the company's lagging financial performance. Mr. Kruger, the former CEO of Imperial Oil, was lured out of retirement to try to turn Suncor around just a year after U.S.-based Elliott Investment Management began aggressively pushing for change at the company, whose share price has lagged its peers in recent years. Richard Power, associate professor with the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, said those working at Suncor would have been wise to be nervous as soon as it became clear Elliott had their employer in its sights. "They'd be naive not to think that they might be affected by this," he said. "An activist investor is going to try to rationalize costs, and one of the highest costs you're going to have is labour costs."