Motorola and investor Icahn reach a deal
Motorola and activist investor Carl Icahn on Monday announced a settlement to their long-running conflict. The result: Two Icahn allies will be nominated to Motorola's board of directors.
Carl Icahn
As part of the deal, all outstanding lawsuits will be dropped, and Icahn has agreed not to launch a proxy battle at the company's upcoming shareholders meeting.
Private equity star William Hambrecht and Keith Meister, managing director of Icahn investment funds, will be nominated for Motorola's board at the shareholders meeting. Meister has also been appointed to the board, effective immediately.
The Icahn Group owns about 6.4 percent of Motorola's outstanding stock.
Icahn has been agitating for better financial performance but has met resistance from company management.
As part of the settlement, Motorola said that it will seek Icahn's input into the company's plan to sell off its mobile devices business and the search for a CEO of that spun-off company.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin.
