Carl Icahn, the renegade investor who likes to buy a huge amount of shares in various companies so that he can force the people in charge to listen to him, change how they operate, and then flip his shares for more money once his corporate fitness program is complete, has his eyes set on Motorola.
Motorola, who was once right behind Nokia in terms of market share and totally transformed the market with their RAZR device and then family of RAZR devices, has been on hard times for the past few years. Many have called for the company to split up. That the division that handles networking and television boxes should no longer be responsible for holding up their wireless cousin. Their wishes will come true come early next year. Motorola’s networking division was already sold to Nokia Siemens Networks, and what’s left of that half of the company is a small workforce toiling away on old government infrastructure contracts.
Icahn, who may or may not have plans for the wireless unit, now owns 10.4% of the company, up from 9.9% earlier this month. He’s probably going to get a direct line to Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices, and I’m extremely curious to find out what he’s got on his mind. Never mind that the Droid series of devices are doing well, the company is going to have to do a lot more to pack the same weight they had behind their punches many moons ago. Will Icahn try to convince Sanjay and fellow shareholders that Motorola be sold to the highest bidder? Will he try and convince shareholders that the company slash jobs and be nothing more than a vessel for Google’s Android operating system?
Too many variables, not enough inside information, but one thing is for sure: Motorla in 2011 is going to be more interesting than it has been in a long time.
[Via: Mobile Business Briefing]