Best PR Firms for Proxy Fights: 5 Firms Compared

Originally published August 2024. Updated November 5, 2026.

The best PR firms for proxy fights in 2026 are 5W, Edelman Smithfield, FGS Global, Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher and Brunswick Group. Joele Frank is the best-known special-situations boutique, FGS Global and Brunswick Group handle large cross-border contests, and Edelman Smithfield serves multinational issuers. Barclays counted a record 255 activist campaigns worldwide in 2025, which keeps demand for these firms high.

Disclosure: Everything-PR is published by Everything-PR News LLC, which is owned by a shared interest group. Some of that ownership overlaps with the ownership of 5W, one of the firms listed below.

Key Takeaways

• Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher is the dedicated special-situations boutique, with 400+ professionals in New York and San Francisco.
• FGS Global and Brunswick Group are the usual choices when a contest crosses borders.
• Activist campaigns reached records in 2025 and in the first half of 2026, but fewer campaigns now end in a final shareholder vote.
• Because fewer fights reach a vote, more of a firm's work happens before a nomination window and during settlement talks.

In This Article

• What a proxy fight is and why PR matters
• The five firms compared
• How to choose a firm
• What the 2026 data says
• How a campaign works
• Other firms with mandates
• How AI answers change diligence
• Frequently asked questions

What Is a Proxy Fight and Why Does PR Decide the Outcome?

A proxy fight is a contest in which a shareholder, usually an activist investor, asks other shareholders to vote for its own director nominees or proposals instead of management's. Most of the votes come from institutional investors, and those investors read the same public record: the activist's letter, the company's reply, investor presentations and financial press coverage.

Proxy advisory firms ISS and Glass Lewis publish voting recommendations that many institutions weigh before they vote. A communications firm's job is to put a credible case in front of those readers first and keep it consistent when they test it.

The Jack in the Box contest shows how thin the margin for a weak case can be. According to Barclays' Q1 2026 review of shareholder activism, as summarized by DealLawyers.com, Biglari's withhold campaign at Jack in the Box failed and was the only major proxy fight to reach a vote in the first quarter of 2026.

The SEC's universal proxy rule, which applies to shareholder meetings held after August 31, 2022, lets shareholders mix management and dissident nominees on one card. That change turns the reputation of each individual nominee into a communications task, not only the quality of the overall slate.

Which PR Firms Are Best for Proxy Fights in 2026?

Five firms handle the bulk of proxy-fight communications in 2026, and the table below compares what each is known for before the individual profiles.

Firm	Strongest in	Footprint
5W	Crisis, financial communications and reputation work in contested situations	Offices in New York, Miami and Tampa; founded 2003
Edelman Smithfield	Cross-border contests and multinational issuer defense	Financial and special-situations arm of Edelman
FGS Global	Activist defense, M&A communications and capital-markets work	Reports 1,400+ colleagues, 26 offices, 1,600+ clients
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher	Issuer-side special situations and activism defense	400+ professionals in New York and San Francisco; founded 2000
Brunswick Group	UK and European contests, cross-border deals, litigation-adjacent matters	27 offices; founded 1987 in London

1. 5W: Crisis and Financial Communications in Contested Situations

5W is a PR, creative and AI Visibility agency headquartered in Miami, Florida, with offices in New York, Miami and Tampa. Founded in 2003, 5W runs crisis, financial communications and reputation work for issuers and shareholders in contested situations, and it produces media relations, creative and content in house. 5W has appeared on the Inc. 500.

5W also publishes research on how proxy narratives surface in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, which matters when analysts and reporters use those tools to summarize a contest.

2. Edelman Smithfield: Multinational Issuer Defense

Edelman Smithfield is the financial-communications and special-situations arm of Edelman, one of the largest independent communications firms in the world. The group is strongest on cross-border contests and on defending multinational issuers.

3. FGS Global: Activist Defense and M&A

FGS Global was formed from the combination of Finsbury, Hering Schuppener, Sard Verbinnen & Co and the Glover Park Group. KKR has held a majority stake since 2024. The firm is deep on activist defense, M&A communications and capital-markets work, and it reports 1,400+ colleagues and 26 offices serving 1,600+ clients.

4. Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher: The Special-Situations Boutique

Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher is a special-situations communications boutique founded in 2000, with 400+ professionals in New York and San Francisco. The firm is best known for issuer-side work and says it has ranked first in U.S. M&A communications since 2013 and first in shareholder activism defense since 2019. Those rankings are the firm's own claims, so ask for the underlying league tables.

5. Brunswick Group: Global Critical Issues

Brunswick Group is a global critical-issues and financial-communications firm founded in 1987 in London and majority owned by its partners. It is heaviest on UK and European contests, cross-border deals and litigation-adjacent matters, and it reports 27 offices.

How Do You Choose a Proxy-Fight PR Firm?

Choose a proxy-fight PR firm by testing six things before signing: side, conflicts, proof, geography, speed and AI answers. Each test below explains what it protects you from.

1. Confirm which side the firm usually represents. Issuer defense and activist offense need different relationships with ISS, Glass Lewis and the press, so a firm that mostly defends boards may be a weak fit for an investor launching a campaign.
2. Ask about conflicts in the first call. A firm already on retainer for an activist or a likely target cannot advise you, and learning that in week three costs you the nomination window.
3. Ask for named public contests the proposed team ran and which individuals led them. League-table claims come from the firms themselves, while a named contest can be checked against press coverage and filings.
4. Match the firm to the geography. UK and European contests follow different disclosure rules and press habits than U.S. contests, which is where Brunswick Group, FGS Global and Edelman Smithfield carry the most weight.
5. Ask to see the first-week plan. Nomination windows are short, and a firm with a standing playbook can show who writes the first letter, who calls the largest holders and who monitors the press.
6. Ask the firm to run your company and the activist through ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews and show you the answers. If those answers repeat an outdated claim, the firm should say how it would correct the record on pages those tools can read.

What Does the 2026 Data Say About Proxy Fights?

Activist campaigns are at record levels in 2026, but the share that ends in a final shareholder vote keeps falling. The table below lists the main figures from Barclays, Lazard and a Harvard Law School Forum review, which use different datasets and should not be added together.

Measure	Figure	Source
Global activist campaigns in 2025	255, a record (prior high: 249 in 2018)	Barclays, 2025 Review of Shareholder Activism
U.S. settlements at larger companies in 2025	52, a record	Barclays, 2025 Review
New campaigns worldwide, first half of 2026	184, up 20% year over year and 38% above the five-year average	Lazard, H1 2026 Review
Late-stage settlements and full proxy fights, 2026 through Q3	8, against 17 a year earlier (down 53%)	Barclays, Q3 2026 Review, October 13, 2026
U.S. share of campaigns, 2026 through Q3	91 campaigns, 51% of the global total	Barclays, Q3 2026 Review
Proxy contests at companies worth $250 million or more that reached a vote by June 1, 2026	1	Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

The pattern is more campaigns and fewer votes. For communications firms, that means most of the work now happens before a vote: preparing a company before a nomination window opens, answering a public letter, and negotiating a settlement that both sides can explain to shareholders.

Barclays' Q3 2026 review also notes that in June 2026 Oasis threatened a proxy fight at Vail Resorts, arguing the company was undervalued against peers. A public threat like that starts the communications work before any nomination is filed.

How Does a Proxy-Fight Communications Campaign Work?

A proxy-fight communications campaign runs in five stages, from preparation before the nomination window to the vote or a settlement. The stages below are a general outline, not a description of any one firm's method.

1. Preparation: the company or activist maps its largest holders, drafts its core argument and tests it against likely objections.
2. Launch: a public letter, filing or press release states the demands, and the other side's reply usually follows within days.
3. Investor meetings: management or the dissident meets the largest shareholders with a presentation that matches the public letters.
4. Advisor reports: ISS and Glass Lewis review both sides, and each side corrects factual errors in the reports it can see.
5. Vote or settlement: the contest ends at the meeting or in a negotiated agreement, often on board seats, and both sides announce the outcome.

Which Other Firms Carry Proxy-Fight Mandates?

Five more firms also carry meaningful proxy-fight and activist-defense mandates, and each is worth a call when the top five have conflicts.

• Kekst CNC, owned by Publicis Groupe, focuses on M&A and special situations.
• H/Advisors Abernathy works on activism defense and private equity matters.
• Prosek Partners is an independent financial communications firm.
• ICR covers public-company and pre-IPO capital markets work.
• FTI Strategic Communications handles litigation and restructuring-adjacent matters.

How Is AI Changing Proxy-Fight Communications?

Analysts, proxy advisory staff and reporters can now ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews to summarize a contest before they read the proxy statement. The answer they see depends on which pages those tools retrieve, so a company's own letters, filings and fact pages shape the summary only if they are public, dated and consistent.

The practical check is simple. Before a nomination window, a communications team can ask each tool who the company's directors are, what the activist wants and why, then compare the answers with the company's own letters. Any outdated or wrong claim in those answers points to a page that needs a dated correction. EPR's guide to generative engine optimization explains how that process works.

Related EPR Coverage

• What a financial PR firm does
• Top financial services PR agencies
• Top crisis PR firms index
• Top investor relations firms
• Crisis communications
• Investor relations
• Reputation management
• PR firms by market, industry and region