Ancora withdraws nomination of candidates for U.S. Steel board

Ancora, a stockholder of U.S. Steel (X), announced that it is withdrawing its nomination of director candidates for election at the 2025 annual meeting of stockholders due to apparent momentum related to the $55 per share sale to Nippon Steel (NPSCY). Recent reports indicate that the company and Nippon may have succeeded in having productive conversations with the Trump Administration to address concerns and discuss significantly increased capital commitments. Additionally, based on language included in Monday’s Presidential Action, Ancora suspects the companies have taken steps to try to mitigate national security considerations. Ancora imagines this is why labor leaders, policy experts and stockholders have recently suggested they expect the sale will be approved. Ancora said, “Our decision to suspend our campaign also stems from U.S. Steel’s embrace of entrenchment tactics. Once it became clear in February that there may still be a path to approval for the $55 per share sale to Nippon, Ancora began sending repeated requests to the Company to postpone the Annual Meeting to allow stockholders to have full information and make truly informed voting decisions. The Company demonstrated a disappointing disregard for sound governance by ignoring our pleas and, as recently as yesterday, continuing to attack us while reiterating the May 6 date. Keep in mind that May 6, 2025 comes just weeks before the new governmental review is expected to conclude. We can only assume U.S. Steel is taking this tact because it is increasingly confident about the transaction’s approval. Please trust that Ancora always wants fellow stockholders and stakeholders to benefit from the best outcomes, which in this case is the seemingly probable closing of the $55 per share transaction. Stockholders will hopefully be able to rejoice over strong returns and that a consummated deal will end the era of broken relationships and destructive decisions during the tenures of David Burritt and his loyal directors. We consider Mr. Burritt, a non-operator who has been called out by federal lawmakers over a “repulsive conflict of interest,” to be one of the worst leaders in Corporate America.4 This is why Ancora launched this campaign in the first place when former President Biden issued the Executive Order blocking the deal, because we truly believed that U.S. Steel could return to greatness with proven and qualified leadership in place.”