Dell Stops Carl Icahn

[whirlcool]

Looks like Carl Icahn has been buying up shares in Dell computer. Michael Dell saw this and got Icahn to agree to limit stock ownership. Good move on Dell's part.

If you don't know Carl Icahn is one of the worst corporate raiders out there. He takes companies, sells pieces off piece by piece and personally pockets most of the profits. Look what he did to companies like TWA, Motorola, Nabisco, Dan River and Marshall Fields of Chicago.

Looks like Dell himself is probably going to try to sell his company to the employees which would probably contain a nicely padded golden parachute lest anything go wrong along the way.

Dell Inc. and Carl Icahn agree on ownership-cap plan

Dell Inc. and Carl Icahn agree on ownership-cap plan

www.denverpost.com

 

[tomturbomatic]

I remember the damage the leveraged buyouts did to businesses in this country in the 80s. That Alfred Taubman bought retail stocks "on the margin" as it used to be called and when he could not make payments when the market went down, many firms were driven out of business. If a poor man robbed a business outright, he would be arrested, tried and jailed. Let a rich man destroy a business using accounting tricks and he goes scot-free and becomes a business model.

 

[westingman123]

If only TWA had been so smart. Icahn's name is still reviled in St. Louis for what he did to "our" airline.

 

[whirlcool]

What got TWA in trouble with Carl Icahn was that when he sold the company off, in the package was an agreement that he can purchase as many seats on future flights as he wants for only 55 cents on the dollar. This was known as the Karabu agreement. But only on flights that passed through St. Louis. If TWA did not like this agreement he said he would shut it down.

Well, he purchased a bunch (I mean thousands) of seats and sold them to a bunch of travel agencies and since the agreement was in his "departing" agreement TWA had to let him have those seats. And guess who got the money for the tickets from the travel agencies. This agreement was one of the major factors that bought TWA down.

And Icahn usually identified a target and slowly but surely buys the stock. Kind of like a sneak attack.

TWA - Death Of A Legend | St. Louis Magazine

TWA was the Marilyn Monroe of the airlines: an American icon done in by powerful men who wanted a piece of its magic. Glamorous, tragic, gone before its time.

www.stlmag.com

 

[arbilab]

Icahn is a hosebag alright. But make no mistake, so is Michael Dell. All he did was wheedle Intel and Microsoft for free startup gimmes. Mort Topher's structure made the company what it was, and the minute he left so did the value. I was holding the stock AND working there when it happened.

 

[launderess]

Dell Is Dying

Along with other PC makers as the market changes. One had only to look at tech stocks sliding down today.

Bottom line is that more and more apps and programs are not even being written for PCs but smart phones, tablets, and other devices. Companies and businesses are choosing to replace desktop and laptop PCs with tablets, smart phone and the other aformentioned devices. Long story short just as the desktop and later laptop PC "killed" off other office devices, now the writing is on the wall for them as well.

Dell, IBM, HP and other makers of PCs are going to have to find ways to make that product relevant to not only the current "older" generation but increasingly the youngsters here and coming up; many of whom have never and or will never use a PC just as their parents never used a typewriter.