Major shareholder calls for directors and CEO to be ousted
Harley-Davidson is facing internal upheaval as a major shareholder demands sweeping change at the top.The crisis comes as America’s biggest motorcycle manufacturer is threatened by the potential impacts of Trump tariffs and possible retaliation from other countries. It is also losing customers, primarily in its home market, and has released disappointing results for 2024.
Now its second-largest shareholder is calling on other shareholders to join it in asking for directors – including CEO Jochen Zeitz – to be removed.
Zeitz has already announced he’s retiring later this year, once a suitable replacement can be found, but investment group
H Partners, which owns a 9.1 per cent stake in the company, wants action now.
In an open letter to Harley shareholders, H Partners wrote: “We believe an absentee CEO who has already announced his intention to retire should not be making decisions that could affect the long-term prospects of the business. We also believe that the current Board, which is tightly controlled by a small number of entrenched Board members, cannot be trusted to oversee crucial decisions, including CEO succession. Therefore, we are seeking shareholder support to remove CEO and Chairman Jochen Zeitz, Presiding Director Thomas Linebarger, and their fellow long-tenured director Sara Levinson, from the Board.
“The underperformance of Harley-Davidson under Mr Zeitz is undebatable. Since Mr Zeitz was appointed Chairman and CEO on February 28, 2020, the Company has underperformed the S&P 500 and the S&P 400 Consumer Discretionary Index by 104 per cent and 81 per cent, respectively. This degree of underperformance corresponds to an approximately $US1.8 billion decline in Harley-Davidson’s market value.”
To accompany the letter, H Partners launched a website, www.freetheeagle.com, to lay out its objectives.
Zeitz was appointed, initially on an interim basis, in 2020 to replace Matt Levatich, who was the author of Harley’s ambitious 2017 ‘More Roads to Harley-Davidson’ plan, which included the Pan America adventure bike, the liquid-cooled, DOHC Revolution Max engine, and the electric LiveWire project. He also envisaged a whole array of Harleys, ranging down to as small as 250cc, as well as many more model styles, including the Bronx streetfighter that was cancelled by his successor.
While Zeitz kept the Pan America, the Revolution Max and the LiveWire project – all were too advanced to cancel when he took the reins – his strategy took the opposite approach to Levatich. Zeitz’s ‘Rewire’ strategy evolved into the ‘Hardwire’ five-year plan. That plan concludes later in 2025 and results don’t suggest it’s achieved its goals.
The Hardwire strategy saw Harley leaning heavily into its heritage – with launches of the ‘Icon’ models – and sticking to cruisers, baggers and tourers rather than expanding into new markets.
Leaning into existing customers and the cliche of the Harley dream carried a risk. In 2024, Harley’s global motorcycle shipments dipped 17 per cent to 148,900 bikes, while revenue dropped 15 per cent and operating income declined by 58 per cent compared to 2023, largely thanks to slimmer margins on each bike sold. Bike sales dropped 7 per cent in 2024, accompanied by an operating loss of $110 million.
Trump’s latest tariff strategies are likely to provoke retaliatory tariffs that will raise the sticker prices on Harley’s exports.
Harley did it tough in the first Trump administration when steel tariffs wiped $A2 billion off its company value. None of the money raised by the tariffs ended up at Harley so it announced plans to move some production offshore, sparking outrage from President Trump.
MEANWHILE, DOWN UNDER
AUSTRALIA HAS always been a strong market for Harley-Davidson, with its big models regularly leading the touring sales segment.
In recent years, FCAI hasn’t released specific segment figures and H-D wasn’t able to provide detail on local sales within the timeframe of AMCN going to press. However, the launch of a range of new models over the past 18 months has underpinned sales here. Bikes like the competitively priced Street Bob, the best-selling Breakout and the new Touring Street Glide and Road Glide have maintained strong brand loyalty, and the reinvigorated 2025 Softails that have just landed also look set to cause a stir locally. The challenge ahead will be maintaining current price levels in the face of upcoming US tariffs.
