'Illumina' Board Chair Restructures Holdings Worth Hundreds of Billions by Liquidating Derivatives

Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) board chair Keith A. Meister, acting in the name of the Covex fund, converted a portion of his equity swap position into common shares between May 7 and 11, acquiring roughly $35 million worth of stock. On May 12, he unwound additional swaps to effectively purchase about $26.3 million more, then sold approximately 320,000 shares in the open market from May 12 to 14, generating proceeds of roughly $47–48 million. After these transactions, the Covex fund’s indirect holdings stood at about 3.5 million shares, with only a small swap position remaining.

On May 21, immediately following the annual shareholder meeting, Illumina appointed former LabCorp CEO David P. King as a new director, reshaping its executive lineup. In its late-April release of fiscal first-quarter 2026 results, the company reported revenue and earnings above market expectations, issued forward guidance, and continued to expand healthcare partnerships and its business around preventive genomics and multi-omics platforms.

Headquartered in San Diego, Illumina is a global genomic-analysis company whose next-generation sequencing instruments and software are key to cancer diagnostics and precision medicine. Meister, founder of activist hedge fund Covex Management and current board chair, has long influenced the company’s governance, capital allocation and portfolio strategy.