Fresh off its first full shareholder vote in the U.S., which secured two board seats at Houston-based Phillips 66, Elliott is taking aim at Japan’s Sumitomo Realty & Development Co in a public letter issued this week. With a stake north of 3%, Paul Singer’s firm is calling out the keiretsu’s governance structure and criticizing a lack of value-creation. Days after the disclosure, Bloomberg reported that Sumitomo is looking to offload as much as $700 million worth of its Tokyo office space.

Half a world and eight time zones away, London-based Parvus Asset Management is pushing Danish-drugmaker Novo Nordisk to shape up after the company’s shares dropped 50% in the last year. Parvus entered the fold in May following the announcement that CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen would be leaving his post earlier than planned amidst concerns that the company has lost ground in the weight loss market. Parvus is no stranger to European shakeups; it slowly built a stake in FanDuel-owner Flutter Entertainment and only recently shed its position in low-cost carrier Ryanair.

With the news this week that Warner Bros. Discovery will break itself into parts, we were reminded that our readers predicted an uptick in bust-ups in this year’s dealmakers survey – GPPers are keeping score, and we tip our hats to you! 

Happening next week, the Vatican will be hosting the second annual Conference on AI, Ethics and the Future of Corporate Governance where representatives from major AI labs, legal scholars and GPP’s Steve Lipin will be speaking. When in Rome…

Buon fine settimana! 

GPP Team

Bloomberg: Activist Retail Investors Take on Korea’s Corporate Laggards

Reporter Shery Ahn chronicles how amateur investors across South Korea are increasingly taking to social media platforms to try and push for changes and share price increases at some of the country's largest public corporations. Read More

The Information: Meta to Pay Nearly $15 Billion for Scale AI Stake and Startup’s 28-Year-Old CEO

Meta announced a 49% stake in the data labeling startup, aiming to bolster the company’s AI efforts and return cash to Scale’s earliest VC backers including Accel, Index and Greenoaks. Scale’s wunderkind CEO Alex Wang will take on a leadership position inside of Meta’s “superintelligence” lab. Read More

TechCrunch: Qualcomm to acquire semiconductor firm Alphawave Semi for $2.4B

Fabless chips giant Qualcomm will strengthen its reentrance into the data center market with Alphawave, which provides high-speed connective technology for the centers themselves and 5G wireless infrastructure at lower computing costs. Read More

Semafor: Apollo, Irth Capital look to take Papa John’s private

Rohan Goswami reports that the PE giant has partnered with a Qatari investment fund to take the “Shaq-A-Roni" pizza maker private for around $60 per share. Other PE funds like Roark Capital have targeted franchise chains including Subway and Dave’s Hot Chicken in recent years. Read More

Financial Times: Pay, perks and CEO prerogatives

Brooke Masters discusses the potential disclosure changes that could reduce the amount of information companies need to provide regarding executive compensation. The article compares being a U.S. chief executive versus their counterparts listed on the FTSE 100, along with some of the more unconventional perks like sponsorships for professional car racing that can come with the CEO title. Read More

The Deal: Texas Passes Bill Regulating Proxy Advisers

In another move to entice reincorporation in the state, Texas legislature approved SB 2337, which limits the scope of proxy advisors and their voting recommendations. Charles Elson, who founded the University of Delaware’s Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance said, “There’s no good that will come out of a bill like this. It’s a kneejerk reaction to a perceived ‘crisis,’ which really doesn’t exist.” Read More

IPO

DealBook: Is the I.P.O. market bouncing back?

Following stablecoin giant Circle’s debut last week, the DealBook team reports that investors may be shrugging off uncertainty and looking forward to new market entrants. With CoreWeave and eToro trading above their recent listing prices and companies like Discord, Figma, and Klarna’s S-1s filed, the IPO window is seemingly getting brighter for the back half of 2025. Read More

FROM OUR DESK TO YOURS

Andrew Tarlow, of longtime Williamsburg stalwart Diner, has finally made a move to Manhattan. Before Brooklyn was really Brooklyn, Tarlow’s restaurants, including Achilles Heel and Roman’s, won the locals of Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Fort Greene over with comfort foods, a legendary burger, and elevated cocktail programs. Tarlow’s newest venture Borgo is an excellent addition to Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood and feels like a grown-up version of Roman’s, flaunting tableside martini service, wood-fired cooking and five incredible pastas for a group.

We went with a chicken liver mousse over charred toast, ornamented with fig and balsamic, a fantastic wood-fired chicken and baked cannelloni with braised beef cheeks. All of which went nicely with a 2023 gamay called Le Sérail, made by Les Roussilles, a small producer in France’s Auvergne region. Add it to your list and be sure to finish off the meal with some pistachio gelato affogato. Cheers! 

PEOPLE MOVES

• Ken Moelis will step down from the CEO role at his eponymous investment bank, transitioning to executive chairman. Navid Mahmoodzadegan will take over as CEO on October 1. Read More
• Paramount Global CFO Naveen Chopra will depart to gaming platform company Roblox. Read More

June 19-20: Second Annual Rome Conference on AI, Ethics and Corporate Governance, Rome

July 9-12: Society for Corporate Governance 2025 National Conference, Colorado Springs

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