Insider trades & hedge fund moves: Carl Icahn tosses out Illumina chair

By Davit Kirakosyan

Here is your Pro Recap of the biggest insider trades and hedge fund actions you may have missed this week: news out of Carl Icahn and Illumina, and top brass buys at General Motors, Ginkgo Bioworks, and EVgo.

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Illumina board chair voted out, but CEO survives vote

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) shares plunged nearly 9% on Thursday after activist investor Carl Icahn successfully ousted Illumina's board chairman, John Thompson, with shareholder support, while his efforts to remove the company’s CEO Francis deSouza from the board failed, surviving the vote.

Icahn's board nominees Vincent Intrieri and Jesse Lynn failed to secure enough votes. Shareholders voted for one of Icahn's three nominees, Andrew Teno, to join Illumina's board. The company plans to select a new chair in the coming weeks.

General Motors CFO purchases $1 million in stock

General Motors (NYSE:GM) CFO Paul Jacobson bought 31,000 shares, or worth over $1 million, at $32.60, as InvestingPro reported in real time.

Last month, the company reported its Q1 earnings, with EPS of $2.21 and revenue of $40 billion beating the Street estimates. Following the announcement, the company earned upgrades from two Wall Street firms. Morgan Stanley upgraded the company to Overweight from Equalweight and raised its price target to $38.00 from $35.00. Meanwhile, CFRA upgraded the company to Hold from Sell and raised its price target to $35.00 from $31.00.

Two Ginkgo Bioworks directors buy nearly $1M in stock

Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA) saw large insider buys from two directors. Harry Sloan purchased 350,000 shares and Shyam Sankar bought 400,000 shares at $1.28, for a total value of $960,000.

Earlier this month, the company reported its Q1 earnings, missing on EPS but revenue beat the consensus estimates. Following the results, William Blair downgraded the company to Market Perform from Outperform.

EVgo director buys $25M in stock

EVgo (NASDAQ:EVGO) Director David Nanus bought 5,882,352 shares, or worth about $25 million, at $4.25. Following the filing, shares gained 3% after-hours on Wednesday but retreated almost to breakeven in the next regular session.

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