2026 Proxy Season is Led by Settlements as Activism Becomes a Year-Round Sport

Aug 21, 2026

Shareholder activism in 2026 has shifted decisively from public proxy warfare to a settlement-first ecosystem. Per Olshan Frome Wolosky’s mid-year analysis, negotiated resolutions have become the preferred outcome, with activists and companies coming to the table much earlier in the process, sometimes before a campaign even goes public. Olshan credits the universal proxy card, in effect since August 2022, with accelerating this shift – by letting shareholders mix and match nominees from competing slates, it made individual directors more vulnerable and election outcomes harder to predict, pushing both sides toward negotiated middle ground rather than the ballot box.

While settlements continue to be prevalent, that wasn’t the only story this proxy season. The ISS 2026 Proxy Season Global Trends report notes that overall shareholder proposal volume fell to a five-year low in 2026, potentially another sign that activists and companies are getting business done early. In addition, companies were focused on other pieces with Governance Intelligence citing Glass Lewis’s report which noted a related surge in reincorporation: 44 U.S. companies moved states in 2026, led by moves to Texas, up from 28 in 2025.

Board composition remains the central battleground in campaigns, but settlements have expanded well beyond seat counts. Olshan notes that agreements increasingly address CEO succession planning, the formation of new board committees focused on strategy and capital allocation, and structural governance changes like separating the CEO and chair roles or declassifying a board. Standstill terms, meanwhile, are just as heavily negotiated. Companies push for longer periods and broader voting commitments to lock in stability, while activists fight for carve-outs that let them oppose future mergers or sales they haven’t evaluated. The tension sharpens as M&A activity accelerates.

Maybe the most notable evolution is the rise of informal resolutions. Companies and activists are ditching lengthy agreements and increasingly announcing changes via press release with messaging that leans much more supportive than combative. These informal resolutions sacrifice legal certainty for speed and flexibility, a tradeoff both sides seem increasingly willing to make.

A few housekeeping points: Please fill out our survey on implications of AI on investor relations. In addition, the newsletter will be taking a break as GPP goes remote to soak in the last rays of summer, so we wish our readers some respite before autumn is upon us.

Lastly, since the Jewish holidays are early this year and we won’t be back publishing until September 18, we wish all a healthy and happy New Year, Shana Tova, and hope for a year of prosperity and peace.

See you in September
GPP Team

ACTIVISM

Food Dive: Zevia Activist Investor Calls for Sale of Better-for-you Soda Brand
Activist Kanen Wealth Management claims that despite being a first mover in the category, Zevia has missed out on years of significant growth which is why the firm is pushing for a review of strategic alternatives, including a sale. Read More

M&A

Bloomberg Law: Faster DOJ Merger Reviews Could Paradoxically Increase Scrutiny
Michael Wise of Squire Patton Boggs writes that the framework, meant to streamline merger reviews, may paradoxically expand antitrust scrutiny overall by freeing up staff faster from cleared deals, giving the agency more bandwidth to take a “quick look” at a broader range of transactions, including ones that previously would have flown under the radar. Read More

Bloomberg: Private Equity Buyers Seen as Joining $3.5 Trillion M&A Surge
Goldman Sachs’ Matt McClure said private equity, sitting on $1.5 trillion of capital, is showing early signs of joining this year’s M&A surge, even as rising state antitrust enforcement adds pressure on dealmakers. Read More

Bloomberg: Stripe Clinches Over $7 Billion Deal to Buy AI Firm OpenRouter
The payments giant will purchase the AI startup, which provides an AI model marketplace for developers, just months after OpenRouter raised at a $1.3 billion valuation. The announcement comes shortly after its pursuit of PayPal, alongside Advent, was reported on. Read More

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Skadden: SEC Staff Withdraws From the Shareholder Proposal Process
A client memo from the firm notes that as the SEC retreats from its traditional no-action letter review, it leaves companies navigating new uncertainty over which proposals could be excluded. Read More

The Wall Street Journal: Investors Slam SEC Plan to Remove Best-Price Rule
The SEC is dealing with a backlog of unhappy investors after Paul Atkins’ team floated the idea of nixing the “trade-through” rule, aimed at preventing brokerages from executing trades below the best quote available on exchanges. The 18 stock exchanges in U.S. markets now handle less than 1% of daily trading volumes amidst the rise of market makers like Citadel Securities and Jane Street. Read More

The Wall Street Journal: The Crucial Moment That Companies Miss After They Oust a CEO
The Journal’s Lila MacLellan analyzes L3Harris ousting CEO Christopher Kubasik without severance over code of conduct violations and managing market shock by instantly appointing insider Sam Mehta. However, corporate governance experts warn that burying the details risks creating ambiguous “informal rules” that corrupt long-term workplace culture. Read More

The Information: Anthropic Prepares Supervoting Power for Founders as It Readies for Mega-IPO
As the Claude provider prepares for a public offering at a valuation reportedly around $2 trillion, it will succumb to Big Tech norms and grant CEO Dario Amodei and fellow co-founders supervoting shares of stock as a part of relatively unconventional governance moves. Read More

IPO

The Wall Street Journal: Investment Firm General Atlantic Is Eyeing an IPO Again
The $130 billion growth investment firm has retained J.P. Morgan as lead left bookrunner for the listing, which could come as soon as the end of the year. General Atlantic’s recent investment successes include a stake in Anthropic and a large growth investment in athleisure brand Vuori. Read More

CNN: World’s Top Humanoid Maker and its Dancing Robots Waltz Towards Record IPO Listing in China
Unitree shares jumped over 600% in its Shanghai debut as the world’s largest humanoid robot maker hits public markets in the Far East. The IPO was 8,000 times oversubscribed as the next phase of AI robotics comes to fruition. Read More

FROM OUR DESK TO YOURS

GPPers’ taste buds were piqued after reading the New York Times’ now-viral review of Bistro Ha and the owners’ response on Instagram. Fish sauce with everything? Count us in. But the summer months call for more casual fare (and we couldn’t get into Bistro anyway), so we dined around the corner at its sister restaurant, Ha’s Snack Bar, which started out as a pre-pandemic era pop-up and now has its own, if tiny, brick-and-mortar setup.

Every dish on the menu was exciting and / or unknowable (e.g., “Tartlette Dac Biet”), so decisions were made solely on the criteria of “things from shells.” As such, we started with the oysters followed by snails – somewhat unattractive and therefore refreshingly un-Instagram-worthy. Among other plates, including a server-recommended dark horse of a dish simply called rice salad, were “things from bottles:” a sharp sparkling rose; a softer still rose; and a Weird Orange, because it would not be a meal on the Lower East Side without. In a sign of the times, Snack Bar sits a mere half-block from what was once deemed the “Smelliest Block in New York,” which isn’t enough to stop a GPP’er from sniffing out a great meal.