Word: icahn
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...long ago, Carl Icahn looked like just another face in the rogue's gallery of corporate raiders, the types who bad-mouth managers but seldom seem to spend an honest day's work trying to renovate the companies they attack. Yet lo and behold, this widely feared raider is proving a breed apart from the other fast-buck operators. He rolls up his sleeves. Icahn, 51, is a quick learner who is imposing his no-frills ethic on some of the largest and most troubled U.S. corporations. Right now, the unflappable Icahn (estimated net worth: $700 million) is simultaneously juggling...
...stakes of Icahn's ventures keep getting larger and riskier. Last week Texaco, in which Icahn holds an interest of nearly 15%, said it lost an astronomical $4.4 billion last year, mainly because of its $3 billion payout to settle an epic takeover dispute with Pennzoil. Yet Texaco's loss might have been far larger had it not agreed to a compromise settlement of Pennzoil's $10.3 billion claim -- a break in the stalemate that Icahn helped bring about. Now Icahn is locked in a struggle with Texaco's management over how to restructure the company and bring it back...
...room in Icahn's midtown Manhattan offices, decorated with framed stock certificates of the companies he has profitably raided, testifies to his conquests. Among the hunter's trophies: American Can, Simplicity Pattern, Hammermill Paper and Marshall Field. It is a display that would make many of his corporate victims cringe, especially the many who lost their jobs when companies were restructured as a result. Yet Icahn's headquarters is no temple to fast money, like the vaulted office of the reptilian Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. Instead, it serves as a model for the unglamorous way he thinks...
Just as unstuffy is Icahn's partner, Alfred Kingsley, a burly analytical wizard whose tiny office is buried in financial documents. "I know exactly where everything is -- unless somebody moves the paper. Then there'll be a crisis." Somehow Icahn's operation remains efficient despite the increasingly complicated latticework of his investments. Icahn raises money through an array of partnerships bearing such names as Aero Limited, Crane, Pelican and Condor. He changes the titles frequently so that his competitors cannot easily follow his activities in the market. To play, new investors must kick in a minimum of $100 million...
Even the USX foray pales in comparison with the size of Icahn's latest target: Texaco (1986 sales: $31.6 billion). Icahn began buying shares in the company when it declared bankruptcy last spring after failing to reach any settlement with Pennzoil, which had won a $10.3 billion judgment against Texaco in a Texas court. Icahn got his chance to help break the impasse in December, when Bankruptcy Judge Howard Schwartzberg ruled that Texaco's shareholders could strike their own deal with Pennzoil, with or without the approval of Texaco management. Before long, spurred in part by Icahn's repeated phone...