No. The common refrain of "but publicly-traded corporations have to maximize shareholder value" is a myth, not a law.
There are bits in the law about management having a fiduciary duty to shareholders, but that mainly means that they aren't supposed to be stuffing their own pockets at the expense of investors. There's a wide birth for management to decide what kinds of profit are and are not worth it.
There are bits in the law about management having a fiduciary duty to shareholders, but that mainly means that they aren't supposed to be stuffing their own pockets at the expense of investors. There's a wide birth for management to decide what kinds of profit are and are not worth it.