Illumina shareholders vote to install Carl Icahn board nominee, oust chair

Activist capitalist Carl Icahn connected Thursday won capable enactment from Illumina shareholders to instal 1 of his 3 nominees to the biotech company's committee of directors. 

Shareholders besides ousted committee president John Thompson. An Illumina spokesperson said a caller committee seat volition beryllium chosen successful the adjacent fewer weeks.

The ballot was announced aft Illumina's yearly meeting, marking a decisive extremity to a two-month proxy fight betwixt Icahn and the institution implicit a controversial acquisition. 

Shareholders voted to instal Andrew Teno, a portfolio manager astatine Icahn Capital LP, an entity wherever Icahn manages concern funds.

Illumina, successful a statement, thanked Thompson for his work implicit the years, saying his enforcement and concern acquisition was profoundly valued.

Earlier this month, proxy advisory steadfast Institutional Shareholder Services recommended that Illumina shareholders backmost Teno.

Icahn, who owns a 1.4% involvement successful San Diego-based Illumina, had projected 2 different manager candidates who are his existent oregon erstwhile employees.

He besides urged shareholders to ballot disconnected the company's CEO Francis deSouza and president John Thompson from the nine-member board.

The ballot is simply a stroke to Illumina, which has claimed Icahn's 3 nominees deficiency "relevant skills and experience" and would "threaten the progress" of the biotech company's halfway DNA sequencing business.

Icahn has accused Illumina's enforcement absorption and nine-member committee of mediocre oversight, peculiarly with respect to the company's $7.1 cardinal acquisition of crab trial shaper Grail successful 2021.

He has called connected the institution to unwind the "absurd and questionable" woody and oust its CEO Francis deSouza "immediately."

Icahn has slammed the enforcement for receiving a monolithic wage bump contempt a steep driblet successful the company's marketplace value. 

Illumina's marketplace headdress has plunged to astir $33 cardinal from astir $75 cardinal successful August 2021, the period it closed the Grail acquisition. 

Much of Icahn's absorption to the woody stems from Illumina's determination to adjacent it without support from antitrust regulators successful the U.S. and Europe.

The Federal Trade Commission successful April ordered Illumina to divest itself of the acquisition implicit concerns that it would stifle contention and innovation. 

The FTC's determination reverses an administrative judge's September ruling, which dismissed the agency's archetypal situation to the deal.

The European Commission, the enforcement assemblage of the European Union, besides blocked the woody past twelvemonth implicit akin concerns.   

Illumina is appealing some orders and expects last decisions successful precocious 2023 oregon aboriginal 2024.

The institution has repeatedly defended its acquisition of Grail. 

DeSouza told CNBC past period that the woody "makes sense" due to the fact that Illumina tin importantly grow the marketplace for Grail's early screening test, which tin observe much than 50 types of cancers done a azygous humor draw. 

The CEO besides touted Grail's 100% revenue growth during the archetypal 4th compared with the aforesaid play a twelvemonth ago. 

In 2022, Grail generated astir $55 cardinal successful revenue. Illumina expects it to marque up to $110 cardinal this year. 

Icahn encountered his ain disapproval during the proxy battle.

Notable abbreviated seller Hindenburg Research accused Icahn Enterprises of being overvalued and likened it to "Ponzi-like economical structures."

Icahn Enterprises has called those claims "misleading and self-serving".