Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management are short-listing potential candidates to become the next Dell chief executive should they win a proxy battle against Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, two sources close to the matter say.
A number of high-profile industry execs have been identified as possible successors to the Dell founder, including Cisco Systems director Michael Capellas, former IBM services head Michael Daniels, Oracle President Mark Hurd and Hewlett-Packard PC boss Todd Bradley, the sources said.
Icahn and Southeastern have already approached several candidates, the sources said on condition of anonymity because the talks were private. Capellas, Daniels and Hurd were not immediately available for comment. Bradley said in an email he had not been contacted.
A representative for Southeastern declined to comment. Icahn did not return calls for comment.
Icahn, Southeastern and company founder Michael Dell are locked in a battle over the future of the world’s No. 3 PC-maker, a struggle precipitated by the swift decline of the global computer industry and the company’s failure to stop sliding revenues.
Its billionaire founder and Dell execs have argued the company has little future in PCs and must transform itself into an IBM-like provider of full-spectrum enterprise services — a makeover best done as a private company.