Struggling communications and electronics giant Motorola has announced that it has reached an agreement with mega-investor Carl Icahn that will see two Icahn execs nominated to the Motorola board of directors, and stave off a proxy fight for control of the corporation. Under the agreement, William Hambrecht and Keith Meister will be nominated for election to Motorola’s board, and in the interim Meister has been appointed to serve on the board effective immediately. Hambrecht is te CEO and founder of investment house WR Hambrecht, while Meister is principal executive officer of Icahn Enterprises and a managing director of Icahn investment funds.
Carl Icahn owns about 6.5 percent of Motorola’s common stock, making him one of the company’s most influential investors. Under the agreement, Icahn has agreed to back the current board’s director nominees at the company’s 2008 shareholder meeting, and not to solicit proxy directors to wrest control of the company from its current management. The agreement also has both parties dropping pending litigation between them, and Motorola has agreed to to seek Icahn’s input in looking for a new CEO for it’s Mobile Devices spinoff and on other matters concerning Motorola’s division into two companies.
Motorola announced last month it was splitting into two companies, one focussing on communications technologies and the other for it’s now-struggling mobile handset business.
“We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Carl Icahn,” said Motorola president and CEO Greg Brown, in a statement. “We look forward to continuing the process we announced on March 26 to create two independent publicly-traded companies and we are pleased to avoid a costly and distracting proxy contest.”
