Icahn, Moto locking horns again

Activist investor Carl Icahn has raised his stake in Motorola Inc. to 6.3% and the company has responded by warning investors that it has not endorsed Icahn’s nominees for its board, according to media reports.
Icahn now owns more than 142 million shares, or 6.3%, up from 5%. He steadily accumulated shares in the past two months as the shares languished around $10.
The investor has nominated four associates for the 13-member board and an election is due in May at Motorola’s annual shareholder meeting. (The date has not been set.)
Last May, the company’s shareholders turned back an effort by Icahn to join the board after an acrimonious and public war of words between Icahn and former Moto CEO Ed Zander.
Icahn has continued to call for the spinoff of Motorola’s handset division into a standalone entity and the appointment of an outsider to direct the operation. Many observers said that Motorola’s Jan. 31 announcement to that effect was an effort to defuse Icahn’s demands.
Icahn’s prospects for four seats on the 13-member board will be closely watched as May approaches. Since last year, when the investor was rebuffed, former CEO Ed Zander has relinquished his post to current CEO Greg Brown. Although Zander remains as chairman of the board, he relinquishes that post in June and does not stand for re-election to the board.
But Brown warned Monday that the company will struggle into next year to turn the handset division around and analysts noted that no companies or private-equity deals for the handset division have surfaced. Analysts have also warned that, in the handset division’s current state, Motorola would not obtain full value for its core division if it were to sell it off this year.