back to article ICAHN'T with this guy: Activist investor gives up battle with Big Mike

Activist investor Carl Icahn has announced that he and his partner Southeastern Asset Management are giving up the fight to stop Michael Dell from taking the PC maker private. Icahn said in an open letter to shareholders that he still thought that Big Mike's $13.88 per share offer for the firm undervalued it, but had decided …

COMMENTS

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  1. M. B.

    Good.

    Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

    Now to see what Mikey D has in store for his company.

  2. ItsNotMe

    Such a shame.

    Ichan is a blood-sucking, self-interested, POS who should just go away & stay away from EVERY company he has designs on.

    He only cares about one thing, and that one thing is putting money in HIS pockets at the expense of everyone else.

  3. Roo

    "He once more called out the directors for treating the vote "as totalitarian dictatorships do; where if they lose, they simply ignore the results"

    Err, as I understand it the voting process didn't occur. If Carl wants democracy, he's in the wrong trade and on the wrong planet.

    1. asdf

      Carl and most other on Wall St. idea of democracy is one dollar one vote. Many rich and executive types do tend to act like toddlers when they don't get what they think they deserve (everything).

      1. Arctic fox

        @asdf

        Indeed. Their idea of democracy is the more dollars you have the more votes you are entitled to.

      2. Callam McMillan

        To be fair, one share one vote does work well. What doesn't work is using money you don't actually have to fund those shares.

  4. asdf

    hmm

    Isn't it funny how the free market types always like saying well if you want to change things money talks, and then when somebody with money does what they don't like, they get all bent? I thought money always flows where it deserves and the market takes care of all. I am not saying he is not a douche just that the holy system is as responsible for his actions as anything.

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. ItsNotMe

      Re: El Reg fail

      And we should care about your opinion because why?

      1. asdf

        Re: El Reg fail

        So noted so deleted but still here's hoping to the rest of the week presents better stories. Hard to complain when not paying for the product.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: El Reg fail @ItsNotMe

        "And we should care about your opinion because why?"

        Quelle horreur! Someone else has posted their opinion! Oh - right. Presumably it differed from yours. Of course, that makes him both wrong and irrelevant. Hopefully we'll all think about whether you approve before posting in future.

  6. Herby

    Next weeks headline...

    Dell is getting out of low margin businesses. The former PC maker said that the business of consumer PCs was not worth doing anything about.

    In a related story, some other Silicon Valley companies seem to be doing quite well with "professional grade" PC's

  7. MrT
    Mushroom

    Good...

    ... but Tim Cook better watch out - there's a maggot trying to worm its way into the heart of Apple that now has one less thing on its mind. Best get stomping.

    1. Tom 13

      Re: Good...

      Cook has a bigger problem. All that cash sitting in the company in offshore accounts DOES mean the shareholders aren't getting the return on their investment that they deserve. Which means much as Crazy Carl is moonbat loopy, the start of his argument at Apple is valid. It wasn't at Dell which made Mike's job easier there.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bwaaahahahahahahahahaha!

    To coin a phrase from my youth: Icahn is all talk and no tackle.

    Couldn't haev happened to a nicer guy.

    1. asdf

      Re: Bwaaahahahahahahahahaha!

      Talk can move the lemmings and when the lemmings move so does their cash.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    IBM, HP, Cisco and the others will be a bit annoyed at that... I imagine that they were rubbing their hands with glee when Icahn made the offer...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So predictions?

    Which direction do people think Dell will be taking... Dell? Just out of curiosity mind you.

    My guess was dropping out of consumer PC / alliIinOne PC, and shifting focus to laptops with touch screens / touch screen monitors. Reasoning?

    PC isn't doing well at the moment lets face it, you don't need to upgrade as often anymore and frankly Dell PCs aren't all that great. Microsoft are still pushing their touch interface which nobody wants because hey don't have touch screen monitors (it's actually not bad on tablets etc) likewise nobody wants to buy the only real touch screen choice for desktops, the all in one, partly because of the insane price tag, partly because you can't upgrade them. Dell starts selling touch screen monitors (they're already pretty good with their normal ones) and it's a relatively open market for them. Likewise with touchscreen laptops.

    1. Callam McMillan

      Re: So predictions?

      My prediction, and it would seem that of those more familiar with the matter is out of the consumer space. So you'll probably still get their workstations and nice monitors, but you're not going to get the £300 commodity laptops and other such tat. The rest of their focus will be on the datacentre and enterprise services.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So predictions?

        Fair enough, honestly I'd forgotten that they had a whole server / enterprise arm. I still believe they'll have a focus on high end laptops though, possibly with touchscreens. Even if they do shift focus to enterprise more and more companies are moving from desktops to laptops. A few months back pretty much every old PC where I work was replaced with a new high end laptop, and a docking station. Works far better than our old workstations, much quieter, and you can take them with you when you go to meetings / customers / working from home.

        1. Tom 13

          Re: So predictions?

          MS seems to be the only company pushing touchscreens on non-tablets. It's a non-starter for anything except tablets and phones.

    2. Tom 13

      Re: So predictions?

      I wouldn't see them dropping it completely, but changing the mix of systems and reducing the quantities they build. At the same time they'll shift even more to network gear and try to build full integration teams. I expect a rocky road.

      I've never had a serious problem on a Dell computer and the gear I've looked at has seemed reasonably priced. In the past I've always rolled my own so I haven't bought from them, but all the PCs I've supported at work for the last 7 years have been Dell. We have had very few manufacturing defect issues with them. The repair cases I've had trouble with them on were all systems that were at least a year past warranty (most memorable was when we had to replace the video card and mb on a laptop 3 times before it started working right again).

  11. ecofeco Silver badge
    Holmes

    Thank god!

    Dell is sinking fast due to its recurring problems with QC and customer support. Strip-the-wealth-sell-the-shell Icahn would have been the death knell.

    While M. Dell has his own issues, the company still stands a better chance under him than Icahn.

    No, I don't own Dell stock. Hell, I hate Dell. But on the other hand, their problems keep me in a paycheck.

  12. Juillen 1

    Good news!

    Icahn rumbles on about his army "improving shareholder value", but doesn't mention increasing the lifespan, reputation, quality or long term profitability of the company. Just the short term "Shareholder value".

    In other words, if you hold shares in it, he'll strip it to the bone in the short term to give you a lot of fast money to put in the next company he dismantles, undoing the hard work of thousands of man years in mere months (and fattening his wallet in the process).

    I tend to use Dell in the Enterprise context, and am quite fond of it. Don't have much to do with their PC wing..

  13. Ralph B

    Icann or Icahn?

    Icann or Icahn? Which is worse? I can't decide.

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