© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The US Federal Reserve building is pictured in Washington, March 18, 2008. REUTERS/Jason Reed
(Reuters) – Activist investor Carl Icahn has urged the US Federal Reserve to stay the course in the fight against the “disease of inflation” despite the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and two other banks last week, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
“I think you have to stamp out the disease of inflation,” Icahn told the FT, ahead of the Fed’s rate-setting meeting next week in which the US central bank is expected to raise its benchmark by 25 basis points.
The activist investor also warned of stress beyond the financial sector, saying that many companies had wasted billions of dollars on flawed acquisitions and become over-indebted in the process, the report said.
This would result in “major problems” for the broader economy, he told FT.
Icahn has been urging Illumina Inc (NASDAQ: ) to divest cancer test developer Grail Inc, while the company said it will divest if it loses an appeal to the European Commission where regulators said last year they intended to require the life sciences company to unwind the $7.1 billion takeover.
The fight with the EU could take many years and the only way forward is for Illumina to divest the asset, Icahn added, according to the report.