Carl Icahn issues open letter to Illumina shareholders

Carl Icahn issued an open letter to Illumina (ILMN) shareholders. The letter says in part: "We know from talking with many of you that there is extreme displeasure among the owners of Illumina. $50 billion of value has been wiped from the company’s market capitalization since August 2021. This value destruction is a direct result of a series of ill-advised (and frankly inexplicable) actions taken by the board of directors of our company in connection with the acquisition of GRAIL, Inc. To paraphrase William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, something is rotten in the state of Illumina…. llumina’s share price performance, and the $50 billion of value destruction that has occurred since the GRAIL deal was closed, clearly shows that shareholders have lost faith in Illumina’s management team and board of directors. Yet these individuals suffer no consequences or remorse. The members of Illumina’s management team and board of directors collectively own less than 0.1% of the company’s stock yet they feel entitled to take these reckless actions with our money. For the past few weeks, we have been working privately to try to find a way to help Illumina and our fellow shareholders. Unfortunately, our efforts have failed to gain traction with the Illumina board and we have therefore determined to launch a proxy contest to attempt to gain board representation due to our fear that Illumina’s directors will pursue GRAIL until the end of time without regard to the amount of value destruction they leave in their wake. We are today announcing our intention to nominate three highly qualified individuals to Illumina’s board of directors at the upcoming annual meeting of shareholders, who will tirelessly pursue justice for ALL shareholders. We believe our three nominees will bring a badly needed dose of sanity to Illumina’s boardroom." Icahn is nominating Vincent Intrieri, Jesse Lynn, the general counsel of Icahn Enterprises (IEP), and Andrew Teno, a portfolio manager at Icahn Capital.