(Reuters) -Billionaire Carl Icahn has a total economic exposure of about 34% to Bausch Health’s common shares, the healthcare firm said in a filing on Tuesday.
While Icahn owns a 9.4% stake in the company, he has exposure to an additional 24.6% through cash-settled equity swap agreements, financial contracts that allow an investor to benefit from stock movements without actually owning the shares.
Earlier this month, Bausch Health said it had adopted a shareholders’ rights plan, also known as a “poison pill”, to fend off any potential hostile takeovers and prevent investors from acquiring a more than 20% stake in the company.
In a supplement to its proxy filing, the company said Icahn refused to provide copies of the swap agreements to Bausch’s lawyers, but has said they were accumulated between May 2021 and September 2023.
Bausch said that according to Icahn the agreements do not give him control over voting for the additional shares.
Shares of the company rose 15% in premarket hours.
(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Shinjini Ganguli)
Comments