Icahn Says "I Can't"

Looks like Dell is probably going private after all:

In a letter to shareholders on Monday, [Carl Icahn] wrote that he could not overcome a series of defeats, including changes to the voting rules that made it easier for Michael S. Dell and the investment firm Silver Lake to prevail in a shareholder vote scheduled for Thursday.

The final blow came last month, when the chancellor of Delaware’s Court of Chancery, Leo E. Strine Jr., ruled that the changes — including lowering the percentage of yes votes needed to pass the deal — were consistent with the state’s corporate laws.

That doesn’t mean that Mr. Icahn is happy. The investor wrote that he still planned to vote against the deal and seek an appraisal of his holdings by a Delaware court. And he defended his actions, which led to a small bump in Mr. Dell’s price.

Somewhere, Steve Jobs laughs.