This is no longer episodic. In the first half of 2025, Europe recorded roughly thirty new campaigns. The UK hosted about half of Q1 activity, with cases such as BP and Telefónica drawing headlines alongside Avadel, SES and Smiths Group. Representation is also sticking. Activists won forty-five board seats across Europe in 2024, including fourteen at UK companies, spread across eight boards. The temperature may be lower in public, yet standards on governance, capital deployment and delivery are higher. The companies that keep control of the narrative test their strategy early, fix the weak joints, and bring investors with them before a campaign does.

Against that backdrop, five shifts stand out that matter for strategy, valuation and investor dialogue.

1. Governance and capital allocation define the ask

Board effectiveness and capital choices sit at the centre of most European campaigns. Investors want oversight that works in practice, non-executive directors who bring relevant challenge and a clear rationale for the balance between reinvestment, portfolio shaping and cash returns. When strategies are contested, the argument is usually about pace and credibility of delivery rather than wholesale redesigns the business model cannot sustain. Recent UK cases underline the point: the debate quickly narrows to board composition, operating discipline and capital deployment, because those levers move value within a plan cycle.

2. Local fluency with global capital

The activist cohort is broadening. More campaigns begin with European institutions or domestic funds, sometimes alongside US names. Local fluency shortens the learning curve on governance codes and stakeholder expectations and makes it easier to build support around specific, actionable proposals. The practical effect is faster alignment around proposals that can be implemented and measured.

3. From theatre to outcomes

Public confrontation still happens, but more work is done in private. Closed-door engagement, cooperation agreements and settlement are increasingly used to secure influence without prolonged fights. which lowers noise and raises the bar on substance. Boards need a position that stands up to detailed questioning from sophisticated counterparties, not a line crafted for headlines.

4. Where campaigns land, and why they stick

The UK remains the most active market, although opportunities are building across continental Europe where sector mix and margin structure make the value case easier to articulate. Industrial and healthcare names stand out. Mid-caps attract sustained attention because influence can be exerted more readily and catalysts are visible within a single plan cycle. Geography and sector still shape tactics, yet what endures is the presence of a clear, defensible path to value creation.

5. ESG persists, governance leads

Support for environmental and social proposals has held up better in Europe than in the US, but governance remains the most reliable path to change. Boards should expect scrutiny on climate and human capital to continue, while recognising that outcomes which move valuation are still anchored in board composition and capital decisions.

Activism preparedness as a discipline

In companies that handle activism well, preparedness is continuous and built into planning, engagement and communications. In practice it shows up as a year-round loop of preparation, engagement, assessment and refresh. Activism is now a structural consideration for boards and executive teams and it should shape how decisions are made, how trade-offs are explained and how the company presents to investors throughout the year.

Vulnerability analysis is the centrepiece. Done well, it is more than a catalogue of pressure points. It is an outsider’s review that asks which decisions would be hardest to defend, where the story lacks coherence and how a challenger might frame a credible alternative path to value. The best companies do this work in advance, not in the heat of a live campaign.

Those insights should then be visible in practice. They should inform earnings scripts, capital markets day content, one-to-ones and proxy materials. The equity story needs to connect strategic logic to capital deployment and to measurable outcomes. Board biographies should make clear why the mix of skills suits the plan. The narrative should explain not only what the company is doing, but why that approach is right in a contested environment.

As activist playbooks become more data-led and alliance-driven, corporate readiness needs to keep pace. Scenario planning, board-level briefings and internal fluency on likely activist lines of argument now sit within best practice. This is not about defensiveness. It is about control. Companies that stay ahead of the activist curve are the ones that keep hold of their narrative.