The first proxy season after a key US rule change was expected to rock the shareholder activism world. Instead, the universal proxy card turned typically public battles into something more private and discreet, with settlements reached behind the scenes or very quickly once they become known.

For the first half of the year, the number of new activist campaigns in the US inched up by 13% to 196 from 173 for the same period in 2022. Private discussions with companies aren’t captured in the data.

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