Carl Icahn disclosed Wednesday that he increased his stake in Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) to 18.72% up from 16.9%. Icahn has big plans for the company as ValueWalk first reported in May.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Icahn now owns a total of 58.9 million shares in Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) after the recent acquisition of 6.5 million shares.
Icahn’s standstill agreement
Recently Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) announced its decision to provide two board seats for the group of activist investor, Carl Icahn, as part of a standstill agreement. Icahn’s group of investment funds owned 16.9% stake in the speech recognition and digital imaging company.
Under the standstill agreement, Icahn’s group agreed not to acquire a 20% stake or more of the outstanding shares of Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) and not to solicit any proxy votes prior to the 2014 annual shareholders meeting. The two recently inducted directors to represent Icahn Enterprises LP (NASDAQ:IEP) and its affiliate investment funds would be included in the slate of nominees for the board during the annual meeting.
Nuance’s disappointing results
Recently Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) came out with their quarterly report and yearly outlook.
The software company’s earnings per share were down 41% from the year-ago period. Its revenue came in at $472.2 million as against the Wall Street estimate of $489.56 million. Sales were down 4% year-over-year.
Won’t push Apple to buy Nuance
Recently Carl Icahn has made some interesting statements regarding his stakes in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Nuance Communications Inc. People have been speculating for some time that he was going to try to push Apple into acquiring Nuance.
The speculation gained credibility as Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) developed its Siri personal assistant feature, used on Apple’s iPhone and iPad. However, that part is just a small piece of what Nuance does.
Carl Icahn is making a move on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) right now, attempting to push the company into a $150 billion share buyback as soon as possible. However he said at the recent Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit that he would never tell Apple management to acquire Nuance Communications Inc.
Shares of Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) were up 13 cents at $14.28 after hours. Through the close, the stock is down 38% so far this year.
