More wonderful and weird tidings: Bain Capital, the brainiac Boston buyout fund, has hired salvage consultancy AlixPartners to extricate any remaining value from its bankrupt buy-out, Outback Steakhouse Incorporated. Outback is the originator of mega-calorie Blooming Onion, and is apparently too many calories for Bain, as the company reported a quarterly loss of a whopping $750 million.

Big grocery chain The Kroger Company (NYS: KR) reported strong earnings. That's the good news. The bad news? Growth was fueled by record growth in purchases by customers of its private label goods, which rose to a stunning 35% of total store purchases. Not only cat food, but white label cat food for the recession, people.

You probably think mutual funds are the least likely activist investors. While that was true in the past, the tides appear to be changing. T. Rowe Price just did something it's only done once before in its 70-year history - filed as an activist investor in order to fight the management buyout of Laureate Education, according to the Wall Street Journal.

T. Rowe Price mutual fund manager, Brian Berghuis, ran the numbers and determined that the private deal valued at $3.8 billion for this operator of universities could be valued about 80% higher. Why did he care? T. Rowe Price mutual funds shareholders could be losing as much as $210 million according the the Journal.

Management buyouts tend to work differently than the more traditional outsider takeovers. Managers want to keep the price as low as possible in these deals, while they look for the highest price possible for an outsider takeover.

Fidelity Investments took a similar stance against a deal for a private-equity buyout of OSI Restaurant Partners earlier this year. OSI manages the Outback Steakhouse chain. Fidelity's stance worked and the offer had to be increased before shareholders would approve it.

It's about time that mutual funds take activist stands to protect their shareholders. Mutual fund assets totaled $11.496 trillion in August, according to the Investment Company Institute. As managers of their investors' money, mutual funds have an obligation to make sure people who hold mutual funds get the best bang for their buck. There's power in numbers and if the mutual fund companies became more active in protecting the rights of their shareholders, both stocks and mutual funds shareholders would benefit.

Lita Epstein is the author of more than 20 books including the "Pocket idiot's Guide to Investing in Mutual Funds."

It's been tough going for the buyout of OSI Restaurant Partners (NYSE:OSI), which is the operator of the Outback Steakhouse. Basically, shareholders have been agitating for a higher price.

As a result, OSI's private equity buyers -- Bain Capital Partners LLC and Catterton Partners – postponed the shareholder vote twice. But isn't this just delaying the inevitable?

Well, today the private equity buyers upped the bid from $40 to $41.15. This comes to roughly $3.1 billion.

It may seem like a small adjustment, but it's likely to get enough support. After all, OSI's business has been soft lately.

But, this is also a sign that shareholders are wielding their power. So, going forward, it's a good bet we'll see increased bids on major buyouts deals.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.