American Motorcycle Dealer 310 May 2025 AMD 310 May 2025

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33rd! YEAR

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Catch The Latest Episode at a Dealership Near You- ' Harley vs. The Hedgie '

MAY 2025

ISSUE # 310
SHOWZONE 8

The ' Hedgie ' in question is Harley- Davidson ' s second largest shareholder- an east coast Hedge Fund called H Partners Management Llc- and its attempts to block the re-election of certain Harley Directors( not least Jochen Zeitz) and ' Free The Eagle '( www. freetheeagle. com). The embattled Harley-Davidson Chairman, CEO and company President finally succumbed to the pressure he had been under by, apparently, informing his employer of his desire to retire( a move also known colloquially as ' getting the hell out of Dodge ') at the beginning of the year. Zeitz became Harley ' s Kaiser in May 2020, after joining the Board of Directors in 2007. Zeitz leveraged his prior experience( and success) in what is termed FMCG( Fast Moving Consumer Goods) brand management to devise ' Hardwire '- a 5-year plan for Harley ' s ' bright and glorious ' future as an aspirational premium brand- designed as a replacement for prior CEO Matt Levatich ' s own ' More
Roads ' five-year plan( Levatich was at least an experienced motorcycle industry engineer and executive). Like most plans it failed to withstand first contact with the enemy, and has proven be another dead-end street, with even worse long-term impacts on the fortunes of the business, its brand

getting the hell out of Dodge

and its dealer network than the prior equally hubristic laden vanity project had been. Zeitz decision to share his plan( to retire) with his management colleagues unleashed a most unedifying ' Milwaukee Meltdown '- the likes of which Harley has never before seen in its 122-year history. In the short term the trigger was the
inability of any one of three identified potential replacement candidates to command the unified support of the board. The resulting resignation of a director( Jared Dourdeville) which activist investor H Partners had placed on the board in 2022 to incubate its approx. 9 % shareholding. In true-toform Hedge Fund playbook 101, Dourdeville had been an embed and H Partners decided it was time exploit its leverage and explode its bomb. In the long-run the denouement was an historically poor management performance. As this edition of AMD was published( April 28) Harley was some two weeks from an annual shareholders meeting that will see whether H Partner ' s attempts to use a proxy battle to oust Jochen Zeitz and two other long-term Board Members( Thomas Linebarger and Sara Levinson) has been successful. However, it would be no surprise if the meeting was postponed, allowing more time for the battle to play out.

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Back To The Future- upcoming H-D ICON special to mark 35th anniversary of the 1990 Fat Boy ' Gray Ghost '?

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