Carl Icahn, in an open letter to HP Inc. (HPQ) shareholders, said, “I beneficially own 23,456,087 common shares of Xerox Holdings Corporation (XRX), constituting approximately 10.85% of the outstanding shares, and 62,902,970 common shares of HP Inc., constituting approximately 4.24% of the outstanding shares. These holdings place me among the largest shareholders of each company and I, as well as many others, believe firmly in the industrial logic of combining these two great American businesses. Amazingly, while HP’s board and management have also declared publicly that they recognize the potential benefits of consolidation, the only thing standing in the way of moving quickly toward a combination that could yield $2+ billion of cost synergies is HP’s board and management’s unreasonable refusal to engage in a customary mutual due diligence process. What is the downside of a mutual expedited due diligence process where there is so much to gain? Because I see no other plausible explanation for HP to refuse to engage in customary mutual due diligence, I am left to wonder whether this is simply a delay tactic aimed at attempting to preserve the lucrative positions of the CEO and members of the board, which they fear might be affected if a combination does take place…I cannot believe that the recalcitrance of HP’s board is driven by any real confidence in its standalone restructuring plan, which the market, shareholders and analysts met with extreme indifference and which seems to amount to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
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