Motorola Considers Handset Spin-Off

Under pressure from a large investor, Motorola announced that it’s considering a spin-off of its cellular handset business, leaving behind the consumer and network products divisions, including the unit that sells public safety radio systems. The handset portion of Motorola’s business has been doing poorly lately, dragging down the other successful divisions of the business, according to investor Carl Icahn, who owns over 3% of the company, which is considered a large share. Icahn says the consumer/network divisions themselves are worth more than the $26 billion value of the outstanding stock. He believes the handset unit could be sold for $20 billion, leaving Motorola much stronger and able to focus on its successful divisions. Read more here.