Items tagged with Icahn
For years it seemed that every discussion on Apple's new product lines and innovation required mention of an eventual Apple iTV (this writer's moniker for such a device, and not to be confused with that amorphous not-a-TV Cupertino-created product with 'TV' in its name, Apple TV). The company had stylishly cracked digital music delivery, sold tens of millions of pretty mobile phones before finally working out how to offer reliable basic phone function via the device, and opened up the tablet market while managing to leech any retail stigma of the word 'pad' along the way. What lucrative consumer technology market was left for Apple to conquer? The Idiot Box! The Boob Tube! The Telly! Yes. Surely,...
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Dell has been in the news quite a bit of late as major investors like Michael Dell and Carl Icahn battle over the plan to take the company private. The contested plan company CEO Michael Dell proposed several months ago was a reaction to weakness in the PC market, and that weakness has manifested as a nasty drop in Dell's product sales. Dell has been trying to shift its business strategy to compete more with the likes of IBM in enterprise services, and that initiative appears to be going well -- the company increased enterprise revenue by 12% in the first quarter of fiscal 2014, up to $5.5 billion. Infrastructure, cloud, and security services also saw a substantial revenue uptick, to $612M (up...
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Is the soap opera over? Probably ... not. However, the drama to come at the Yahoo shareholders meeting on Aug. 1st is going to be a lot, lot less.Today it was announced that Yahoo and Carl Icahn have come to an agreement. By giving Icahn a seat on the board as well as two others to be filled from his list of nominees (one of the current board, Robert Kotick, will not stand for re-election), Yahoo has placated Icahn to the point that he will withdraw his proxy fight plan.Yahoo said eight members of its current board will stand for re-election, including Chief Executive Jerry Yang, while one member -- Robert Kotick -- won't. The board will be expanded to 11 members, with the two...
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As the Yahoo! shareholders meeting on August 1st rapidly approaches, Yahoo! is preparing. They sent a letter to their shareholders on Thursday, urging them to vote against a proposal by Carl Icahn which could result in the unseating of some of all of the Board of Directors. The letter, from CEO Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock was also filed with the SEC Thursday afternoon. The letter is pretty long, but pretty contentious as well. There's no doubt that the battle has just begun. Some high (or low) lights: Carl Icahn bought his stock two months ago for an estimated average cost of less than $25 per share. He is well-known as a corporate agitator with a short-term approach to his investments...
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It seems that the old saying, "truth is stranger than fiction", rings true yet again but depending on your perspective, Yahoo might actually be on to something. The recent offering from the Microsoft-Carl Icahn Dynamic Duo, that came in over the weekend, was tied up with less than a 24hr deadline ultimatum that was firmly underscored with a no-compromises tonality. In the deal, Microsoft was throwing cash around like only Microsoft can, with not only an equity investment of $3.9 billion but also a preferred debt purse of $2.8 billion as well. But wait, behind door number 3 was a cool $2.3 billion in guaranteed annual revenue for search advertising for the next five...
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