NEW YORK — Billionaire investor Carl Icahn stepped up his effort to take control of the boutique movie studio Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. on Friday, saying he will put up his own slate of candidates to replace the company’s board.
Icahn, who has a roughly 19 percent stake in Lions Gate, has been tussling with management since last year.
In a lengthy, open letter to the company’s board Friday, Icahn jabbed at Lions Gate’s directors for allowing its stock price to sink and for trying to block his efforts to buy up the company’s shares. He said he hopes a new board will move quickly to replace management.
“Since the board is clearly unwilling to tell the emperor he wears no clothes, it is left up to the shareholders to take action,” Icahn said in his letter.
Trying to replace the board is a familiar tactic for Icahn.
In one recent battle, he tried to oust Yahoo Inc.’s board in 2008 after the company turned down Microsoft Corp.’s $47.5 billion takeover offer. Yahoo eventually appeased Icahn by allowing him to take a board seat himself rather than kicking out the rest of the company’s directors. Icahn left Yahoo’s board last year, happy with the company’s new CEO, Carol Bartz, and its decision to hire Microsoft to provide search results.
In the case of Lions Gate, he is looking to take over the entire company. Lions Gate, which is based in Vancouver, but has most of its operations in Santa Monica, Calif., backed the Oscar-winning movie “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.”
It also owns the TV Guide network and produces television shows, including “Weeds” and “Mad Men.”
