Harley-Davidson shareholders voted Wednesday to re-elect CEO Jochen Zeitz, along with board members Tom Linebarger and Sara Levinson, to the company’s board of directors.
The vote took place in just seven minutes during Harley-Davidson’s annual meeting of shareholders Wednesday afternoon.
The election is the climax of a weeks-long campaign launched by New York-based investment firm H Partners Management last month.
H Partners, which owns a 9.1% stake in Harley-Davidson, launched its campaign in the hopes of convincing Harley-Davidson shareholders to withhold re-electing three members of the Harley-Davidson board: Zeitz, Levinson, and Linebarger. H Partners also called on the board to immediately remove Zeitz as CEO and install a senior leader to the position temporarily.
The campaign followed the resignation of Jared Dourdeville, partner at H Partners, from Harley-Davidson’s board in April. He left after citing concerns about the company’s financial performance and overall direction as a brand.
A new board member, Valvoline president and CEO Lori Flees, has been elected to fill the seat vacated by Dourdeville.
“This was in no way a definitive victory for Harley and should not be characterized as such,” a source with knowledge of the election results told BizTimes. “Preliminary results indicate that Jochen Zeitz received over 48% of the votes cast withhold. Preliminary results also show Tom Linebarger and Sara Levinson also received over 40% withhold.”
The final voting results from the election will be shared via SEC filings at some point next week, according to Paul Krause, chief legal officer at Harley-Davidson.
Directors elected today will hold office until the 2026 annual meeting of shareholders.
“On behalf of the entire board and management team, I would like to extend our gratitude to our shareholders for their trust and support,” said Linebarger in a Wednesday statement. “We appreciate the valuable perspectives and feedback our shareholders have provided leading up to our annual meeting, and we look forward to continuing to engage going forward. The board remains committed to executing its duties in the best interest of all the company’s shareholders.”
Zeitz informed the company he would like to retire this year and a CEO search process for his successor is already underway.
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