Carl Icahn snaps up 4 million more Dell shares

Activist investor Carl Icahn seems to have upped the ante in his play to stop Dell from going private.

In a financial filing on Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission it was revealed that Icahn bought 4 million more shares of the PC company on Thursday. This means he now owns 8.9 percent of the company, which is nearly 156.5 million shares.

Before Icahn's most recent purchase he owned 8.7 percent of the company. Now, with 8.9 percent ownership, the investor is the second largest shareholder of the company after founder and CEO Michael Dell, who owns about 14 percent of the company.

Icahn and Dell have been engaged in a public battle over the company's future. The CEO announced in February that he planned to take the company private via a $24.4 billion, or $13.65 per share, buyout with his partner Silver Lake. However, Icahn put forth a counteroffer looking to keep the company public and let shareholders decide whether to cash out at $15 per share or stay in.

Last week, Dell's Special Committee of the Board of Directors entered into a revised agreement with Dell's CEO and Silver Lake -- the company said that it agreed to Dell's recently announced $13.75-per-share offer.

Along with other agreements, Dell also proposed a change to the company's voting policies. Previously, if a shareholder didn't vote in the election to determine whether the deal should be made, it would have counted as a "no" vote. In the offer that Michael Dell presented to his company's board last week, he asked that only the votes that are cast be counted.

By accepting the deal, Dell's board won't vote to determine if the company should go private until September 12. Previously, the vote was scheduled to be made last Friday.

According to the SEC filing, Icahn purchased his new shares for $12.94 per share; so, even if he's unsuccessful in working to keep the company public, he'll still be able to profit off selling his millions of shares.

Via the Wall Street Journal.