The biggest activist battles of 2025

00:03 Speaker A

Activist investing is booming on Wall Street. And Josh, let’s talk about some numbers here. There are 61 new campaigns in July, August and September; This figure was 60 compared to the previous quarter, but is also an increase from 36 compared to the previous quarter. So what are we talking about when we talk about activist investments, right? In the 80s they were called corporate Raiders. There are basically two types of investments, right? A big investor can do this. A passive investment in which they purchase shares

00:30 Speaker A

and they let this go quietly or an activist stake where they put their flag and say, well, I’m not just an investor, I want you to swap XY and Z. Maybe I want you to change the board, maybe I want you to change the leadership, maybe I want you to change your strategy or even potentially put yourself up for sale. So when we talk about activism in a broad sense, this is what we’re talking about.

00:46 Speaker B

Yeah, let’s put a name to some of these faces. So the name we would call this would be Paul Singer from Elliott Management. Why are we talking about Mr. Singer? Because she’s a powerhouse, right? Executives think it was around 76 billion at last count. When I bring it up, Julia, I want to make sure I understand this correctly. This year alone, they have actively participated in more than a dozen activist campaigns in 2025. Their campaigns dominate the first six battles

01:10 Speaker B

By share size, BP and Phillips had 66. It wasn’t just the energy sector. You had Honeywell, you had Pepsi, broad strokes. Some of the themes you just mentioned were what they wanted, right? They wanted cost savings, they wanted divestitures, they wanted strategic pivots. I thought this was interesting just from a performance standpoint, a statistic from our old colleagues at Bloomberg, annual returns have averaged double digits since they launched in ’77, only two years of losses

01:32 Speaker B

For Mr Singer.

01:34 Speaker A

Wow. So it’s a strategy that works for him. And there are many other big names in this space. There are also smaller beginners. But you mentioned Paul Singer, Carl Icahn, who has been in the business for a long time, and Nelson Peltz, for example, who has made a name for himself in many consumer-facing companies. And then we have a slightly younger generation of people. Dan Lobe was once involved with Yahoo, Sony, Disney and Bill Ackman’s activist campaign. Listen, I had a lot of experience covering his plant-based activist campaign. This didn’t quite work.

02:07 Speaker B

Yeah, and then I listen to all the big names. I think we should bring up other names as well. Travis Kelsey. Okay, let’s talk Kelsey for a minute. It will come, it will come, so I would be on the first ballot for the Hall of Fame Titan. She is also engaged, a little-known singer. He is small but attracts attention. Hmm, that was interesting, it was one of my all-time favorite stories from this year because when the headline dropped, I could do a sort of double take. But basically the story is, he teams up with Janna and they have six flags in their eyes. And at first you think Julie, what’s going on here? Is this a misprint? But then when you read it, you see that Mr. Kelsey is a Six Flags fan. He actually has a pretty diverse investment portfolio, right? It has beer, clothes and games. And I think the idea for Jana is; Hey, you hook up with a guy like that, a famous superstar, it won’t hurt you. You attract attention, you attract attention, you gain awareness about the campaign.

03:04 Speaker A

Yes like that. I mean, this six-flag chart kind of symbolizes why there’s investment, why activists are involved. I mean, look at the stock. The stock is down 67 percent this year. An activist looks at this and says, I can do this better. I can help this company when you see a return like that, especially if you potentially have an emotional attachment in this case to six flags or roller coasters or amusement parks or something like that. Maybe you think you can help. One of the other iconic campaigns that always comes to mind when I think of activism, we previously featured Jeff Smith from Starboard where he incorporated Olive Garden, renamed Olive Garden’s parent company, and made many operational changes, including salting the pasta water. Remember this?

03:39 Speaker B

I don’t remember this. But it’s a foundation. Come on. I’m married to an Italian, that’s very simple. Let me ask you something, here’s a question for you. You think so, since we’ve talked about everything related to artificial intelligence?

03:45 Speaker A

Yes.

03:45 Speaker B

Could there be a theme developing in Invest next year where some people might say, maybe they’ll say, hey, they’re saying, you’re the chip maker, you’re the data center operator, you’re the software name, you’re investing a lot in this AI thing. I can’t see the ROI. Where? Or did I come too early? Maybe this is too early.

04:02 Speaker A

Oh, interesting.

04:04 Speaker A

Should we start an activist fund?

04:06 Speaker B

If you got Kelsey’s phone number, I’m in. Then I’m in too. Yes.

04:08 Speaker A

Let’s see if I can research this.