Wildest Campaigns 2025

While hopes for a wave of M&A-driven activism quickly faded in the opening months of 2025, activists instead sailed into uncertain market conditions with a fresh approach and more grit. The new landscape delivered a record number of withhold campaigns, and pushed many activists who had previously avoided going all the way to a vote to do so.

Multiyear campaigns and succession planning continued to be key themes, while a surprising number of companies with staggered boards found themselves being targeted. There was also a new level of unpredictability around proxy fights with the first fall-off in settlements since the introduction of the Universal Proxy Card.

The Diligent Market Intelligence editorial team tracked all the key contests to surface along the way and below shares its top picks for those we deem the wildest of the season.

1: Elliott Management stays the course at Phillips 66

The season’s biggest contest saw Elliott Management secure two of the four seats it had sought on the 14-member staggered board of Phillips 66 – the first time Elliott has gone all the way to a shareholder vote in the U.S. after recording 13 settlements between 2022 and 2024 – albeit with many inked at the eleventh hour. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) endorsed all four Elliott candidates, one more than Glass Lewis, which also took the activist’s side on “matters of cost management, synergy value and capital allocation.”

Given the even nature of the split, both sides claimed victory with Elliott asserting that the result sent a signal that “shareholders demand meaningful change” while the oil refiner’s Chair and CEO Mark Lashier said the outcome reflected “a belief in our integrated strategy and a recognition that our early results do not yet reflect the full potential of our plan or the value inherent in this business.”

Video interviews with its nominees and principals and all-out media campaign made this proxy fight a study in emerging digital communications, while a legal fight over Elliott’s proposal to overcome the company’s supermajority voting requirement by having all directors resign annually, as well as the activist’s fears that the company would shorten its slate to only two seats set the tone. Furthering the sense of chaos and intrigue, a director appointed as part of a settlement with Elliott in 2024 said he found the activist’s engagement “inconsistent” after he was targeted for removal just a year later.

2: Dispute over seats as HG Vora pursues first contest at Penn Entertainment

In another multi-year campaign involving a classified board and an activist completing its first-ever contested vote, HG Vora Capital Management secured two seats at Penn Entertainment, while also claiming that its third nominee should be appointed. The activist’s successful designees Johnny Hartnett and Carlos Ruisanchez had the company’s backing, as well as that of proxy voting advisors Glass Lewis and ISS. However, when Penn reduced the size of its board by one seat in April, it meant HG Vora’s third candidate, former Penn Chief Financial Officer William Clifford, could not be elected. The activist ultimately opted not to seek an accelerated trial over concerns that could delay the vote, but rallied shareholders to send a message by voting for Clifford on its own proxy – creating a throwback to the pre-2022 two-card system. “There can be no mistake about the mandate from Penn’s shareholders that the status quo is simply unacceptable,” said Parag Vora, founder and portfolio manager of HG Vora, after the vote.

3: Mantle Ridge succeeds in CEO and wider board reshuffle at Air Products

Succession planning has long been the go-to campaign strategy for Mantle Ridge but at Air Products & Chemicals, the hedge fund succeeded in removing the very CEO its founder Paul Hilal helped appoint a decade ago in a campaign led by Pershing Square Capital Management. Mantle Ridge argued that what the company needed in 2025 was different to what it needed then, and ousted three of the four directors it targeted, including Air Products CEO Seifi Ghasemi. Air Products’ steadily increasing list of concessions failed to win support from proxy advisors or investors like Norges Bank and the activist’s win in January would have given other funds optimism, had it not been for regulatory upheaval with new Securities and Exchange Commission guidance on Schedule 13D two weeks later.

4: H Partners deploys withhold campaign in push for change at Harley-Davidson

Another throw-back this season saw Rehan Jaffer’s H Partners spearhead a “Free the Eagle” withhold campaign at Harley-Davidson – a decade after its withhold campaign at Tempur Sealy set the bar for what such a strategy could achieve. At Harley-Davidson, the effort focused on CEO and Chair Jochen Zeitz, as well as long-tenured directors Sara Levinson and Tom Linebarger with claims the three had “overseen the destruction of more than $6 billion in equity value.” At the May 14 vote, Zeitz – with plans to step down at the end of the year – managed to hold on to his seat by a very slim margin with 49% pushback from the votes cast while Levinson faced over 42% opposition and Linebarger 41%. Encouraged by the result, H Partners said that “while we are disappointed with the state of the company under the leadership of Mr. Zeitz, Mr. Linebarger, and Ms. Levinson, we believe that this shareholder mandate can create a brighter future for Harley-Davidson.”

5: Scandal at Fuji Media draws Dalton attention

In Japan, where companies embroiled in scandal have proven to be a draw for activists, Fuji Media Holdings survived a bid by activist fund Dalton Investments to sweep its board, despite a sexual misconduct scandal that had impacted the Japanese broadcaster’s brand and bottom line. Dalton had nominated 12 and secured backing for five of its nominees from Glass Lewis, with fellow Japanese activist Yoshiaki Murakami understood to have supported its efforts. But when the company unveiled a plan to reduce the size of the board from 17 to 11 and kept only one incumbent, its efforts paid off. Dalton continues to advocate for a tax-free spin-off of the company’s real estate business and for ‘‘other changes to enhance value for all shareholders,” and subsequently won a seat on the board of another Japanese company, Hogy Medical, in a further sign that activists are making inroads in the country.

Honorable mentions

Not all shareholder meetings are wild but all activist campaigns are wild in their own way. Here are some of the most intriguing situations not to make our top five.

Non-U.S. campaigns took up several spots, with BP at the center of a number of dramatic storylines including divergent investor sentiment on ESG and renewable energy objectives that has put European companies in a tougher position than peers elsewhere, as well as rumored interest (since denied) in a takeover by Shell. Attrition during the campaign was significant. BP’s strategy and sustainability chief Giulia Chierchia resigned, while Chair Helge Lund saw significant opposition, even after announcing he would likely step down in 2026.

In Asia, COVID-vaccine manufacturer Sinovac continued to battle through legal implications resulting from two entities claiming to be the rightful board of directors. A decision by the U.K. Privy Council on an action brought in Antigua awarded the right to a group backed by 1GlobeCapital and U.S. activist Heng Ren, which plan to play a big dividend. But that kicked off a proxy fight led by SAIF Partners, Vivo Capital and Advantech Capital that culminated on July 9. Along the way, Sinovac’s auditor resigned.

Meanwhile, Korea Zinc obtained shareholder approval to cap its board at 19 members, preventing activists from electing as many as 17 new directors from their own slate after excluding votes from the lead activist and setting up a new cross-shareholding structure. The maneuvers are likely to end up in court, while South Korea’s government is pursuing new legislation that will seek to protect minority shareholders. Back in the U.S., Silver Star Properties REIT exercised its poison pill as part of a campaign led by co-founder Allen Hartman, who had been ousted as CEO in October 2022. Hartman was seeking to replace a majority of the board and liquidate Silver Star, suing to get the company to hold its first annual meeting since 2011.

And finally, Matthews International was a wild enough company to start with, operating in three segments with little synergy: memorialization (funeral products), industrial technologies (including warehouse automation), and SGK brand solutions (packaging). Unsurprisingly, an activist arrived with a breakup plan. Barington Capital was feeling good with endorsements from both proxy advisors going into its February 20 showdown – even after the company sold its SGK business and announced a governance overhaul. However, the release of vague new 13D filing guidance from the SEC on February 12 was widely rumored to have influenced votes in favor of management. At the time of writing, Barington was reportedly considering a second bout.

Link to the full report can be found here.