IR Monitor – 27 August 2025

In this week’s newsletter:

• Activists find winning strategy in surprise first half: the Harvard Law School Forum on corporate governance
• IR Impact on how AI and technology are modernising the earnings call
• Top executives’ pay in UK hits record high, reports The Independent, but there are very few signs that this represents a problem for investor relations
• The ‘capital of capital’: time to book your roadshow to Abu Dhabi
• The company wasn’t meant to be public: Bloomberg on the strange case of Soho House
• And finally … a game where companies talk down analysts beforehand and investors act surprised afterwards: Alphaville on the stupidity of earnings season

This week’s news

US Activists see rise in Boardroom success – Harvard Law School Forum

US-based activists are seeing higher success rates in 2025, with stronger director candidates being appointed by harnessing new tactics. While global activist board seat wins fell 11% in the first half of 2025, US based activists won 112 board seats, up from 101 in the same period in 2024, making it the most successful start to a year of board gains since 2022.  “Activists are getting better” says Jim Ross, global head of shareholder advisory at Barclays, noting improvements in both nominee quality and campaign sophistication. Governance remains the top priority for activists globally, whilst personnel removal demands have climbed in the US and Asia. The Harvard Law School Forum reports that “Vote-no” or “withhold” campaigns have emerged as a prominent, less costly activist tactic, capable of driving meaningful boardroom change and reputational damage. For example, in the case of H Partners, while all the directors were reappointed, nearly half the shared voted withheld on three targeted directors, resulting in their resignation from the board and the appointment of a new, external CEO. Most importantly, of the US board seats won in H1 2025, 92% were achieved via negotiated agreements, underscoring the impact of strategic perseverance in high-conviction campaigns.  

How AI and tech is modernising the dreaded earnings call – IR Impact

The traditional earning call is not dead but is quickly being replaced by smarter, cheaper and more agile AI-driven solutions. According to the IR Impact, digital fluency has now become “a baseline” due to rising stakeholder expectations for real-time access, clarity and flexibility via formats such as webcasts. AI-led platforms like Investor Caller can help companies streamline every part of the earnings call process without the need for large production teams which requires weeks of planning and can be quite costly. Features such as automated transcripts and post event features like participant analytics and podcast-style call summarisations are becoming standard. This shift helps companies to regain control more widely by enabling companies to respond swiftly to investor queries, manage calls internally and engage investors more effectively.  

UK Executive pay reaches record levels – The Independent

Executive pay at the UK’s largest listed companies has reached new highs, marking the fourth year in a row that chief executives have taken home a record amount. In High Pay Centre’s latest report, the median CEO remuneration rose 6.8% to £4.58 million with thirteen FTSE 100 chiefs earning over £100 million, up from ten last year. According to The Independent, the average FTSE 100 CEO now earns 122 times the median full-time UK salary. Despite corporate pay deals worth £200 million being rejected by shareholders in April alone, this was not the case for Melrose Industries CEO, Peter Dilnot, who earned a bumper £45.5 million last year in pay and bonus awards. The thinktank, High Pay Centre, is calling for reforms to address excessive executive pay including implementing the Government’s Employment Rights Bill as well as encouraging the consistent disclosure of top earner’s pay. 

Abu Dhabi – the new “capital of capital”

Abu Dhabi is intensifying its efforts to establish itself as a premier “capital of capital”, leveraging its substantial $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth holdings to attract asset managers, private equity firms and hedge funds. The Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) has seen a notable 41% increase in registered money managers as at Q1 2024, reaching 144 firms. The Financial Times notes, whilst the emirate has been slower than its neighbours to diversify from oil and gas, it is carving out a distinct position from Dubai’s commercial banking centre and Saudi Arabia’s domestic infrastructure focus. Major players including BlackRock, Brevan Howard and PGIM have established significant operations in the emirate, though sources suggest the relationship between physical presence and capital allocation remains complex. Industry insiders note however, that simply establishing a local presence doesn’t guarantee allocation from the emirate’s sovereign funds, suggesting the relationship between physical proximity and capital flows remains nuanced in this rapidly evolving market. 

Privatisation of Soho House – Bloomberg

Soho House’s return to private ownership highlights the inherent tension between the clubs’ core values of being exclusive and culturally relevant verses its public market demands, writes Bloomberg. Soho House became a global network, riding the wave of post pandemic demand for exclusively curated social spaces and flexible working environments. However, since its 2021 public listing, the company’s share price has nearly halved, with investors growing increasingly concerned about its lack of profitability across its 30 year history. The situation exemplifies a broader challenge for membership-based businesses: achieving the scale needed for public market success often contradicts the exclusivity that underpins their appeal. With members in key locations like New York and London already complaining about overcrowding, the move to private ownership may better align with Soho House’s business model, though questions remain about how private equity backers will view its persistent unprofitability and a “broken business model” according to short seller GlassHouse. 

And finally… Alphaville on the stupidity of earnings season

Earnings season summaries are becoming increasingly detached from reality, writes the Financial Times. Particularly in the US, Analysts are being talked down by companies before the end of every quarter and therefore corporates are almost always beating the consensus, resulting in positive headlines and share prices on the announcement day. SG Securities strategist Andrew Lapthorne describes it the “just-in-time” consensus highlighting that “individual analysts’ consensus estimates would suddenly drop one by one prior to a company’s quarter end, only for said company to ‘surprise’ a few weeks later.” Justifiably, the FT’s Alphaville questions the use of brokers compiling these scorecards.