This year, when it comes to eyeing board seats for Biogen Idec , Carl Icahn is finally standing pat. For the first time since 2007, the activist investor isn’t nominating new candidates to contest for Biogen’s board at its annual shareholder meeting in June. That means he seems to like his hand – which includes three board seats and the drug maker’s new chief executive George Scangos. “Under George’s leadership, the company has obviously made significant progress,” Alexander Denner, a managing director of Icahn Partners LP, said in an interview Monday. Denner is a Biogen board member and played a key role in recruiting Scangos last year. The move (or lack thereof) doesn’t mean Icahn won’t push for change in the future, but he has spent years pressuring the company, gaining three board seats and a CEO to his liking for his efforts. Since joining in July, Scangos has pushed for numerous changes , including a sweeping restructuring that implements many of Icahn’s previous suggestions. Given the company’s performance, Icahn doesn’t have a lot to complain about: Biogen shares have risen 22% in the last year and recently traded north of $70, at their highest level in more than three years. The window to nominate directors

to Biogen’s board is normally earlier in the year, but a recent board proposal to eliminate the staggered-election structure of the board, allowing for the annual election of every director, reset the clock. The deadline to nominate alternative directors expires at the end of business Monday, but Denner said Icahn’s group won’t propose alternative directors. Although it needs to be approved by shareholders at a June 2 meeting, removing the staggered board would make it easier for the board’s composition to change. Currently, just one-third of Biogen’s 12-member board is elected each year. Prior to Scangos’s arrival last summer, Icahn had nominated directors to the company’s board for three years in a row and harshly criticized the company’s management. He won two seats in 2009, after losing in the prior year. Last year, he reached a settlement for a third director. Icahn began pushing for change following Biogen’s failure to sell itself in 2007 at his urging. He later claimed that the company ran a flawed process designed to avoid a deal. At the end of last year, Icahn owned about 16.1 million shares, or about 6.7% of the shares outstanding.

Original post:
For Biogen Idec, Peace Is Breaking Out on the Shareholder Front