Icahn drops threat to challenge Illumina board, Reuters reports

Activist investor Carl Icahn has dropped a threat to mount a new challenge to Illumina’s board, people familiar with the matter told Reuters’ Svea Herbst-Bayliss and David Carnevali. Icahn, who installed one of his nominees to Illumina’s board last year through a proxy contest, saw little value in a new proxy contest after Illumina took steps to comply with antitrust rulings to divest Grail, the report said, citing the sources. The billionaire investor is still pressing on with litigation against the company’s board that he filed last year, which claims that they breached their fiduciary responsibility by completing the acquisition of Grail, the authors note. Shares of Illumina are 3.4% lower in afternoon trading.