SiliconBeat

Micrel, the San Jose chip maker who last year successfully fought off a proxy battle with Obrem Capital, its largest independent stockholder, spent $20 million May 7 buying back 3.1 million more of Obrem’s holdings, in addition to the 1.6 million shares it purchased in February.

The company picked up the shares at a discount, Read the rest of this entry »

Micrel is losing the head of its analog business unit next week. Vice President Scott Ward tendered his resignation Monday, a day before the company postponed by a year the expiration date for its poison-pill defense adopted last year in the face of an accumulation of its shares by Obrem Capital, which later launched an unsuccessful proxy battle to take over Micrel’s board.

Ward, 54, joined Micrel 10 years ago and has headed the analog unit since November 2007. There was no explanation offered for why Ward is quitting.

Micrel, the San Jose chip maker that won a nasty proxy battle last year with its then-largest independent shareholder, Obrem Capital, decided it better extend its poison-pill defense against hostile takeovers by one more year. The shareholder rights plan  set up a year ago was to have expired today, but will now live on until March 24, 2010, according to a regulatory filing.

On March 19, Micrel entered into a Read the rest of this entry »

Micrel, the San Jose chip maker who last year successfully fought off a proxy battle with Obrem Capital, its largest independent stockholder, spent $10 million this week to buy back 1.6 million of Obrem’s 10.7 million shares.

The company paid Obrem Read the rest of this entry »

Richard Crowley was named chief financial officer of Integrated Device Technology, according to a filing the San Jose chip maker made with the SEC Tuesday. He will begin work Oct. 20, 10 days after he leaves his current employer, Micrel. Crowley gave his notice last week at Micrel, which revealed the decision in its own filing today.

Crowley, 51, has worked at Micrel since 1999 and spent 18 years with Read the rest of this entry »

Micrel, the San Jose chip maker that fought off a proxy challenge earlier this year from Obrem Capital Management, has proposed an amendment to its 2003 “Incentive Award Plan” that would automatically grant an option to purchase one share of its common stock to any independent director on its board for each share the director purchases on the open market, up to a maximum of Read the rest of this entry »

Ray Zinn, Micrel’s president, chief executive of Micrel and single largest individual shareholder, issued a statement today that essentially said there were no hard feelings over its nasty proxy battle with Obrem Capital Management, which amassed a 14.9 percent stake in the San Jose chip maker earlier this year and then tried replace current board with one of its own choosing at Micrel’s shareholder meeting Tuesday, an effort which it reportedly lost “overwhelmingly”. Here’s what Zinn had to say: Read the rest of this entry »

We return to the ongoing struggle for the hearts and minds, OK, the votes, of Micrel shareholders in the contest between the company’s own board and an opposing slate of six directors nominated by Obrem Capital Management, its largest independent shareholder. Micrel put out a release today headlined: “All Four Independent Proxy Voting Advisory Firms Recommend Against Obrem Proposals to Take Over Company at May 20 Special Meeting.”

The latest recommendation from shareholder advisory firm Proxy Governance included this witticism: “This proxy challenge may single-handedly redefine the term ‘ill-advised.’ ” Read the rest of this entry »

Micrel, the San Jose chip maker staring down a proxy battle with Obrem Capital Management, the dissident shareholder that wants to install its own slate on the company’s board, got more ammunition this week with which to argue that, in fact, it is creating shareholder value.

• Exhibit 1: Financial results for its most recent quarter, when it earned a 13-cent profit per share, 30 percent higher than analysts had been expecting. A Micrel representative passed along a couple analyst reports, extolling the news. “Proxy or Not, This Company is Growing,” was the headline from a report from Thomas Weisel Partners, which raised its
  12-month price target for Micrel shares by a buck to $12.
• Exhibit 2: The company increased its dividend by 16 percent on Thursday as well.
• Exhibit 3: A letter Micrel sent to shareholders Friday in which it called Obrem a “newly formed hedge fund that has never controlled or operated a company.” It said that four of Obrem’s six nominees are “investment and consulting professionals with zero operational experience.” The letter goes on to note that Obrem is currently “busy with another hostile campaign in which they are attempting to breakup a Canadian life sciences company.”

The most persuasive argument may be Micrel’s stock price, which gained 7 percent last week to close at $10.36 Friday. That’s 29 percent higher than the average price Obrem paid for its stake in Micrel, which it has held for 64 days.

The drama at Micrel that began quetly in February when Obrem Capital Management, a New York investment firm, first began buying up shares of the San Jose chip maker weeks after they hit a 52-week low, generated more call-and-response the last couple of days, most recently with Obrem’s naming of an alternate slate of nominees to the board.

Read the rest of this entry »