Elliott twists Phillips 66’s arm even more as it builds $2.5 billion stake

The activist investor and oil refiner struck a deal a year ago. Apparently it wasn’t enough.

2/11/25 10:33AM

Phillips 66 might have thought it was out of the woods with Elliott Investment Management a year ago, when it bowed to pressure from the activist investor by agreeing to name one Elliott-approved director to its board and give Elliott input on naming a second.

But the second director never got named, and Elliott reportedly isn’t happy about it. Combine that with the fact that Phillips 66’s stock has fallen more than 25% from its April 2024 peak, and you wind up with today’s news: Elliott is ramping up the pressure again.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Elliott has boosted its stake in the company to a whopping $2.5 billion and plans to push the oil refiner to shuffle its operations to boost its stock price.

Shares of Phillips 66 rose 4.2% in recent trading.

In a press release this morning, Elliott said, “It has become evident that urgent changes are needed” at the company, including selling or spinning off the company’s midstream business, as well as selling interests in a firm called CPChem and some operations in Germany and Austria.

It also said the company needs to review its operations and add independent directors who can “oversee a comprehensive review of the executive leadership team.”

For its part, Elliott has had a decent run of successfully influencing changes at companies it targets, including Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, and Honeywell.

Max Knoblauch10/24/25

Premium seats help push airlines higher following third-quarter results

Shares of American Airlines are climbing toward the carrier’s best trading day since August 12, when ultra-budget rival Spirit issued its initial warning about its ability to survive. American’s shares are up more than 7% on Friday afternoon.

Investors’ optimism comes a day after American posted a better-than-expected full-year earnings forecast. In a call with investors, American said that it’s ramping up its premium cabin offerings.

“Our ability to grow capacity in premium markets will be further supported as we take delivery of new aircraft and reconfigure our existing fleet. These efforts will allow us to grow our premium seats at nearly two times the rate of main cabin seats,” CEO Robert Isom said. American CFO Devin May said that nose-to-tail retrofits of certain wide-body jets will bump the number of premium seats available on those planes by 25%.

Extra legroom has been a boon for major carriers, particularly this quarter. Delta Air Lines said its premium product revenue grew 9% in Q3, compared to a 4% drop in economy seat revenue. Similarly, United Airlines said its premium revenue grew 6%, outpacing economy. Shares of both airlines were up more than 3% on Friday.

Carriers with less exposure to first- and business-class tickets like Southwest Airlines and JetBlue didn’t see the same amount of momentum on the day.