SiliconBeat

Trident Microsystems said it has finally received notice from Spencer Capital Opportunity Fund of identity of the two nominees Spencer has said it wants to nominate to the chip maker’s board of directors. The names of the dissident nominees were not released.

The New York based investment company had put Trident on notice of its intention to nominate its own candidates earlier this year when 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 $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 »

It looks like iPass has yet another large investor with a track record of kibitzing in corporate affairs. The Redwood City maker of business-mobility software already is dealing with a proxy battle seeking to make all its directors stand for election every year along with a rival slate of director nominees from Foxhill Master Fund, which has amassed 4.17 million shares of iPass, or 6.7 percent of its shares outstanding.

Now Ramius, the New York hedge fund that earlier this year convinced Actel of Mountain View to expand its board and nominate directors of its choice to the chip maker’s board, today disclosed owning Read the rest of this entry »

SciClone Pharmaceuticals was told by its largest investor Friday that it intends to nominate four candidates to SciClone’s seven-person board at its next annual meeting.

The request was made by an entity controlled by the Italian pharmaceutical group, Sigma-Tau
Finanziaria, which beneficially owns 21.3 percent of SciClone’s stock.

SciClone’s Chairman, Dean Woodman, said in a filing today that the company’s board would Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s another dispatch from Mercury News reporter Elise Ackerman, who has been covering the Yahoo saga for us. She’s been examining some materials related to the shareholder litigation brought about regarding Microsoft’s proposed takeover:

Now that the Yahoo shareholder meeting is over and Carl Icahn has been appointed to Yahoo’s board of directors he will be working to rescind severance plans adopted by the board’s compensation committee on February 12 , 2008.

According to a declaration filed in Delaware Court by John Fox, a veteran Silicon Valley employment attorney, the plans were highly unusual. Read the rest of this entry »

Bryant Riley, who filed a shareholder lawsuit against Transmeta in January and said in May he intended to mount a proxy fight at the company’s next annual meeting to have himself and a cohort nominated to its board, will now be nominated to the board by the company itself, according to an agreement announced Tuesday.

Transmeta also agreed to increase its board size from seven to nine directors, and to immediately name to it J. Michael Gullard, who serves on the board of directors at Alliance Semiconductor along with Riley and Melvin Keating, whom Riley had originally nominated along with himself to the Transmeta board.

Riley also agreed to acquire no more than Read the rest of this entry »

Shares of Asyst Technologies shot up 28.6 percent, or $1.12, to $5.03 Wednesday after the company revealed that it’s board is mulling over another offer to buy the maker of chip-making equipment.

The offer came from Aquest Systems, a company headed Mihir Parikh, an Asyst founder and former chief executive who in 2003 alleged Read the rest of this entry »

Shareholder activist and current Yahoo nemesis Carl Icahn felt it necessary to file his blog post of this morning with the SEC as an attachment to his proxy filing offering a rival slate of nominees to serve on Yahoo’s board of directors. If his proxy fight with Yahoo fails, he may at least have a nice list of subscribers to his blog.

Regarding Your Comments on Yahoo

Posted by Carl Icahn June 27, 2008: 10:16 AM

Many of you have been asking me about Yahoo. Please remember I am in the middle of a proxy fight. A proxy fight involves a complicated process of SEC approvals, federal securities laws, filing requirements and a great deal of time and money.

At this time, due to SEC regulations, I do not intend to post your comments regarding the proxy fight. However, I am planning to give you my views about Yahoo and its management shortly. If you wish to be informed I invite you to subscribe. Stay tuned.

Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock explained why they found their company’s new agreement with Google “so exciting” in a letter to shareholders Wednesday. But the bottom line of the communication was to urge them to vote AGAINST the dissident slate of directors being nominated by Carl Icahn. We quote herewith: Read the rest of this entry »

Asyst Technologies, the Fremont chip-making equipment manufacturer, said that it received word that a hedge fund run by Bryant Riley intends to nominate its own slate of six directors to “in an attempt to gain control of Asyst’s Board of Directors,” according to a press release put out by Asyst Wednesday afternoon. If elected, the new directors “intend to sell (Asyst) through an auction process” according to the release. Read the rest of this entry »