The Star Online: Business
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- Malaysia’s KLCI climbs, banks, Tenaga advance
- Billionaire Icahn Sues Dell In Latest Attempt To Foil US$24.4bil Buyout
- Google Bets Customization Will Be Moto's X-Factor
| Malaysia’s KLCI climbs, banks, Tenaga advance Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content]Malaysia's blue chips extended their gains for the second day on Friday, as investors picked up sold-down stocks after Wednesday's rout sparked off by Fitch Ratings downgrade of the country's outlook. |
| Billionaire Icahn Sues Dell In Latest Attempt To Foil US$24.4bil Buyout Posted: NEW YORK: Activist investor Carl Icahn sued Dell Inc and its board on Thursday, his latest attempt to derail aUS $24.4 billion buyout bid by the computer maker's founder and CEO Michael Dell. Icahn asked a court to block rule changes Michael Dell has proposed ahead of a shareholder vote set for Friday. Icahn and his affiliates also want the court to stop Dell from changing the record date by which shareholders must have purchased their shares in order to vote. They want to stop Michael Dell from voting any Dell shares acquired since February 5 at any annual shareholder meeting. The February 5 date was when his buyout bid was announced. The lawsuit also seeks the court to bar the company from changing any shareholder voting requirements. The lawsuit, filed in the Court of Chancery of Delaware, seeks to force the company to call an annual shareholder meeting on the same day as the special meeting on the buyout in case Dell Inc sets a new record date. "My personal reaction, bombastic," said Larry Hamermesh, a professor at the Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware, referring to the lawsuit. "The linchpin of it seems to be that it's inappropriate to move or create a new record date because that takes advantage of a cynical effort to put shares in the hands of arbitrageurs who will want to vote for the deal." Hamermesh pointed out that the judge who is likely to take this case, Leo Strine, often made the point in the takeover battle by industrial gases companies Air Products of rival Airgas that arbitrageurs are shareholders with the same rights. Icahn, who views Michael Dell's offer as too low, has amassed an 8.7 percent stake in Dell and is leading a charge with Southeastern Asset Management against the buyout with an offer of his own. He has been campaigning to get Dell to set a date for the annual shareholder meeting so he can put up his own slate of directors for the company. A spokesman for Dell Inc declined to comment on the suit but said Dell board has always sought to act in accordance with its fiduciary duties. "Tenuous" talks between the buyout group and Dell's special board committee for a higher bid are continuing and they're "making progress," CNBC said on Thursday. The debate over the go-private transaction has dragged on for months, jeopardizing the future of the computer maker facing a decline in its core business of personal computers amid the growing popularity of tablets. Michael Dell has said a turnaround of Dell should be done away from the scrutiny of public investors. THIRD ATTEMPT AT VOTE A vote on the buyout, which has been postponed twice, is now scheduled for Friday and sources familiar with the matter have said another adjournment is unlikely. The special committee has said it would put the original buyout offer of $13.65 per share up for a shareholder vote. Dell's special board committee rejected new voting terms in a revised bid by Michael Dell and Silver Lake, which raised their offer price last week by 10 cents to $13.75 per share on the condition the voting rules were changed. Currently, shareholders who abstain are counted as voting against the deal, but the buyout group wanted those investors to be excluded from the tally. Michael Dell's unusual demand sparked outrage among major investors, but the buyout group had said about 27 percent of the unaffiliated shares had not yet been voted and the presumption that these shares should be treated as if they had voted against the transaction was unfair. The votes that have come in so far are split evenly between yes and no, sources have said, but there appears to be some signs that Michael Dell could get more votes. Some of Dell's largest investors, who have abstained from voting on the buyout, told the company's board this week that they would back the deal at the buyout group's latest offer price, three sources close to the matter have told Reuters. Dell's shares closed up 2.3 percent at $12.96 on the Nasdaq.- Reuters |
| Google Bets Customization Will Be Moto's X-Factor Posted: NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO: Motorola on Thursday unveiled a new smartphone that consumers can personalize with a choice of colors and materials, hoping to stand out in a crowded market and justify the $12.5 billion that Google Inc paid for the ailing handset maker. The highly anticipated "Moto X" marks the cellphone maker's first flagship device since Google bought the company in 2012, and is its latest attempt to break into a smartphone market dominated by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics. The phone's customization options are a novel touch which may appeal to fashionistas, analysts said. But some analysts questioned whether the Moto X offers the kind of technological breakthroughs that will vault Motorola back into the top rungs of the mobile rankings. "We would have expected magic from somebody like Google, and this is not magic," Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics, said. "Motorola could have done this without Google equally well. Or for that matter, another hardware manufacturer not owned by Google could have made this phone," he said, citing the phone's average hardware specifications. The Moto X will go on sale in the United States at the end of August or the beginning of September for a suggested retail price of $199.99 to customers who sign a two-year contract at five of the biggest U.S. mobile network operators. Google faces a steep climb in its effort to revive Motorola, which once claimed the No. 2 spot in the global phone market but according to research firm Strategy Analytics now commands a mere 2 percent market share. Shut out of the Apple-Samsung battle, Motorola competes with other smaller players such as HTC <2398.TW>, Nokia <NOK1V.HE> and BlackBerry <BBRY.O?. Motorola is betting that it can win over consumers by offering a huge palette of colors to personalize their phones, as well as unusual phone materials such as wood. "They're not playing the 'mine is bigger than yours game,'" Avi Greengart, an analyst with Current Analysis, said. "Their approach is that this is what consumers actually need. "I have no doubt there are people who want to customize their phones. The question is how many of them," Greengart added. AT&T Inc <T.N>, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service provider, will have exclusive rights to let its customers customize the phone from a selection of 18 colors for the back, two for the front and seven accent colors for an undisclosed time period. While AT&T will allow customers to customize their phones, rivals Verizon Wireless <VZ.N> , Sprint Corp <S.N>, T-Mobile US <TMUS.N> and U.S. Cellular <USM.N> will only be able to offer black-and-white versions of the device. In order to promise delivery of customized phones within four days, Motorola had contract manufacturing partner Flextronics International Ltd <FLEX.O> build a factory in the United States. ANOTHER PHONE LAUNCH The Moto X launch comes as speculation grows that Apple will unveil a less expensive version of itsiPhone later this year. There are also rumors that Amazon.com is developing a low-cost smartphone, to follow up on the success the e-commerce company has had with its Kindle tablets. Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Partners, said the Moto X's is too expensive given the market's shift to lower-priced phones. Motorola is "chasing after the high end right when the high end is dead," he said. The phone's price and its lackluster features will hamper Motorola's efforts to return to profitability, said Gillis. "Motorola has been in the money-losing club and clearly they want to stay there," he said. Since it bought Motorola, Google has promised that it would rationalize the company's phone range, which included as many as 45 phones in 2011. Along with the Moto X and three Motorola Droid phones, Motorola will likely have just one more phone launch this year, said Rick Osterloh, Motorola's vice president. A Motorola spokesman told Reuters that the next phone would be less expensive than the Moto X. Analysts also noted that the Moto X does not include the newest version of Android, the mobile operating system software that Google gives away for free and which is featured on three out of every foursmartphones sold worldwide. Google must walk a fine line in its ownership of Motorola, to make sure that other phone vendors that use its Android software - including Samsung - do not feel that Motorola receives preferential treatment. Motorola, which Google runs as a separate company, does not get early access to new versions ofAndroid, a spokesman said, noting that the newer 4.3 version of Android was only made available last week. Google primarily makes money off of Android from online advertising when consumers access its services on Android-powered devices. Rick Osterloh, Motorola's vice president for product management, said consumers have shown that they are interested in putting their personal stamp on a phone, seen in the popularity of phone cases featuring various colors and sparkly surfaces. Motorola is still working out which wood to use, he said. Aside from cosmetic concerns, the decision will have technology ramifications because different woods "respond differently" to radio signals. In addition to industrial design changes such as a curved back and the choice of colors, the phone's key features found in its camera and a voice-activated user interface are the same as what Motorola introduced in its line-up of new Droid devices last week. Motorola said that Moto X would become available in Canada and Latin America as well as the United States around the same time. Motorola said it has yet to establish a price for customers who want to pay the full retail price without signing a contract. Shares of Google closed up 1.9 percent at $904.22 on Nasdaq on Thursday. - Reuters |
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