Motorola agrees to take two Icahn nominees on board

Mumbai: Motorola Inc, the biggest US mobile-phone maker has agreed to take two nominees proposed by activist investor Carl Icahn on its board and solicit his advice on the way forward for the handset unit.

Icahn dropped the proxy fight and the two sides agreed to end all lawsuits, after Motorola agreed to take the two proposed Icahn representatives - Keith Meister, a managing director of the Icahn investment funds, and William Hambrecht, founder of WR Hambrecht & Co, on the company's board of directors.

The move comes at a critical time when the Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola announced plans to spin off its struggling wireless-handset division to an independent company.

Icahn, who owns a 6.4 per cent stake in Motorola,  will get access to confidential information, but over a period of time.
 
Icahn had previously rejected Motorola offer of two board seats, partly because the company would not accept Meister as a director.

Prominent investment banker William Hambrecht, another Icahn ally, will also be added to Motorola's official slate of directors, which Icahn has agreed to support.

"We look forward to continuing the process we announced on March 26 to create two independent publicly-traded companies and we are pleased to avoid a costly and distracting proxy contest," Icahn said in a statement.

Shareholders are expected to vote on May 5 at the company's annual meeting.