Activist investor Carl Icahn has won another victory, having persuaded mining titan Freeport McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) to appoint two of his nominees to its board.
Andrew Langham and Courtney Mather are to join Freeport's board just a day after the miner downsized the board from 16 members to nine; the board now comprises 11 members.
Langham is general counsel at Icahn Enterprises while Mather is managing director of Icahn Capital.
Shares in Freeport shot up on the news, rising almost 10% to US$13.00, generating an instantaneous profit for billionaire Icahn, who controls around 8.8% of Freeport's shares, making him the miner's largest shareholder.
"We have had a number of contacts with representatives of Freeport over the past few weeks and commend the board for adopting a number of our recommendations, such as reducing the number of directors to 11 and providing us with two representatives on the board, as well as representation on the board of Freeport's oil and gas subsidiary," Icahn said in a statement.
"We also believe that Freeport stockholders generally will benefit from our agreement, which restricts the ability of the company to implement a poison pill and permits our representatives to resign from the board at any time and be free of any restrictions.
"To pre-empt criticism that we were willing to accept only a small minority position on the board, I should point out that in many of the situations just over the last few years, where we accepted only small minority positions, shareholder value has been greatly enhanced. Several examples are Forest Labs, Hain Celestial, Hologic, Mentor Graphics, Take Two Interactive, Herbalife, eBay, etc., etc. I could go on, but I believe the point is made," he added.