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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Icahn lashes Amylin board, urges sale of company, (NASDAQ: AMLN)

Activist investor Carl Icahn lashed out at the board of Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc on Wednesday, urging it to put the company up for sale and threatening a proxy fight.Icahn, the company's third-largest shareholder with an 8.9 percent stake, criticized Amylin for failing to confirm or deny media reports that it had rejected a $22-a-share takeover offer from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. Bristol has also failed to comment on the reports.In an open letter to Amylin, Icahn also criticized the board for approving a public offering of 10 percent of the company at an assumed price of $15.62 a share on March 8, without disclosing any Bristol offer in the registration statement, and for granting options to the company's executive officers with an exercise price of $16.02 a share on March 6."These actions make absolutely no sense to me in light of a Bristol-Myers bid and have served to substantially dilute shareholders who owned the stock when these actions were taken," Icahn wrote.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Amylin) is a biopharmaceutical company focusing on the diabetes and other metabolic diseases through the discovery, development and commercialization of medicines. Shares of AMLN fell by 0.83% or $-0.2/share to $23.92. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $8.03 and as high as $25.84. On average, 4874740 shares of AMLN exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 541985.



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