Sponsored by: Investment Center

Something new in your business?  Click here to submit your business press release

Chamber Corner | Main Street News | Job Hunt | Classifieds | Calendar | Illinois Lottery 

Exclusive: Icahn - Family Dollar poison pill puts damper on 'friendly dialogue'
 

[June 10, 2014]  By Jennifer Ablan

(Reuters) - Billionaire shareholder activist Carl Icahn told Reuters on Monday that the Family Dollar Stores Inc <FDO.N> poison pill is a "quintessential example" of attorneys "simply earning fees."

Icahn said the poison pill also "puts a damper" on prospects for a "friendly dialogue" with Family Dollar executives.

Family Dollar adopted a poison pill to buy time to consider any possible deal that Icahn could push for after becoming its largest shareholder.

Icahn said on Friday in a filing that he had a 9.39 percent stake in Family Dollar and said he was considering to push the $6.89 billion company for a merger with rival Dollar General Corp <DG.N>.

"The poison pill especially in this case is a quintessential example of attorneys simply earning fees - how does it possibly help shareholders by putting a pill in?" Icahn said.

"How does it possibly matter if I own 10 percent or 15 percent of a company? All it does is it makes it more difficult to have a friendly dialogue, which we already are planning to have. It puts a damper, at least from my perspective, for the friendly dialogue."

(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Richard Chang)

[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.