An Early Look at the 2025 Proxy Season
INTRODUCTION During the latter part of 2024, companies began operating in a more favorable regulatory and investor environment. One of the reasons for this shift was updated guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulatory bodies. Early trends from the 2025 proxy season show a decrease in shareholder proposal submissions to Russell […]
Rajeev Kumar is a senior managing director, David Farkas is the Head of Shareholder Intelligence, and Amanda Buthe is a managing director at Georgeson. This post is based on a Georgeson piece by Mr. Kumar, Mr. Farkas, Ms. Buthe, and Martin Wong.
INTRODUCTION
During the latter part of 2024, companies began operating in a more favorable regulatory and investor environment. One of the reasons for this shift was updated guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulatory bodies.
Early trends from the 2025 proxy season show a decrease in shareholder proposal submissions to Russell 3000 (R3000) companies. At the same time, we have also seen a sharp rise in companies filing ‘no action’ relief requests and a sizeable portion with relief granted by the SEC.
As a result of these combined changes, companies likely felt more confident pushing back on shareholder demands, including on environmental and social issues. Many investors also indicated satisfaction with board performance and executive management saw record-high support for their companies’ Say on Pay proposals.
In this report, Georgeson gathered and analyzed 2025 partial year-to-date (YTD) proxy results (July 1, 2024, to May 16, 2025) from R3000 companies and compared proxy data from previous years.
Prior season data in this report reflects proxy data from the full annual general meeting (AGM) season (July 1 to June 30 of the following year) of R3000 companies unless otherwise indicated.
Please note that the report interchanges the term ‘year’ with ‘proxy season’ unless stated otherwise.
