Icahn renews call for Oshkosh to spin-off JLG

Carl Icahn and his affiliates are once again proposing to the management of Oshkosh that JLG be launched as a stand-alone business.

The Icahn Group thinks that JLG's performance has improved enough for it to operate outside the other Oshkosh businesses and that Oshkosh should immediately pursue a tax-free spin-off of the JLG business to shareholders.

Icahn Associates is Oshkosh's largest shareholder with more than 9% of the shares. Early this year Mr Icahn proposed a number of alternative board members to the shareholders one of whose policies was to, "Immediately explore alternatives for JLG to reallocate capital to debt reduction, returning capital to shareholders and providing opportunities to pursue a more active acquisition strategy surrounding core businesses."

Shareholders returned the existing board, which is continuing to implement the MOVE strategy (MOVE stands for Market recovery and growth; Optimise cost and capital structure; Value innovation; Emerging market expansion.) The strategy includes further developing export markets and taking advantage of recovering non-defence markets such as the access sector.

At the end of Oshkosh's third quarter (end 30 June 2012) the Access segment - JLG - represented 33% of Oshkosh's turnover for this financial year. Sales for this segment had increased 40% in Q3 compared to the same period in 2011 and profit had tripled.