Icahn fails to win seat on Moto board

Billionaire corporate raider, Carl Icahn, failed to win a seat on the board of Motorola, the world’s second largest handset manufacturer said Monday, after a preliminary count of shareholder votes at its annual meeting.

Motorola said that stockholders re-elected the existing board of directors. The company will publicly announce the final results within a few weeks.

However, the war of words between Icahn and Motorola chief executive Ed Zander, is unlikely to be over.

Last week, Icahn, who has spent $1.2bn on an almost 3 per cent stake in Motorola, took out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal, slamming Zander, following which Motorola hit back at Icahn with a personal attack of its own.

Icahn is expected to continue his criticism of the management of the company, which has run into troubled waters due to its ailing mobile handsets division.

At the meeting, held at the Art Institute of Chicago, Icahn reportedly won applause from smaller shareholders and called for the board to replace Zander within three or four months, if the CEO failed to turn the company around.

“During the past few months, we have met with and listened to a large number of our stockholders, including Mr. Icahn, and we value their insights and perspective regarding Motorola,” said Zander on Monday.

“We are focused on executing our plan to improve the performance of our Mobile Devices business and building upon the strength of our strong Networks & Enterprise and Connected Home Solutions businesses,” he said.

Motorola is now expected to unveil a raft of new 3G devices at an event next Tuesday. Apparently the company blames its shortcomings on the lack of 3G handsets it has available, rather than its failure to find a followup to the RAZR.

Incidentally, Moto is still flogging the RAZR horse, having just announced another colour for the device – Purple – just in time for Mother’s Day in the US.