Part billionaire activist,
part aspiring stand-up comedian, Carl Icahn entertained a crowd of journalists, flacks and financial industry players with his one-man show at the New York Financial Writers Association awards dinner on the Tuesday evening. The blustery investor in typical impromptu style took aim at the usual suspects during his keynote speech: entrenched boards and management, and his targeted company of the moment Yahoo! Inc.
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Icahn seemed to blame all of our country's economic problems on poor corporate governance and incompetent "micromanaging" boards and management. He opened by highlighting the country's economic woes, saying, "We are at a precipice economically," adding, "I really lay the blame on a [corporate governance] system that doesn't work." He said that America's inability to "compete in the whole global system" is tied to management that "wastes, wastes and wastes." He lightened the mood with a sprinkling of humor at boards' expense, quipping that when looking for a laugh, "I don't watch 'Saturday Night Live' anymore, I just go to a board meeting."
Yahoo!'s board and management, with whom Icahn has waged a highly publicized campaign against in hopes of pushing an acquisition by Microsoft Corp., did not escape his rants. His lambasting of Yahoo! kicked off with a direct slam of chief executive Jerry Yang, who he hopes to oust. "At Yahoo!, the board allowed Yang to turn down a [Microsoft] bid without thinking," he said. In line with his pay-for-performance beliefs, Icahn then criticized the directors' $10,000 a week salaries to come to these "boondoggle" board meetings, reiterating a point he had made in recent letters to Yahoo! chairman Roy Bostock.
The crux of Icahn's chain of proxy-fight-fueling letters has been his criticism of what he has termed a "poison pill" severance program. Icahn along with two pension fund groups have said a severance package Yahoo! adopted in February that would be triggered by a change of control could potentially thwart a Microsoft acquisition as it may add up to $2.4 billion to the cost of buying the company. Icahn during his speech said the plan could be triggered if he wins his board seats. This could only serve to impede what Icahn called "a marriage made in heaven," adding, "they hate each other, but some marriages are good when you hate each other." He added that, without Yahoo!, Microsoft may have a tough time competing with Google Inc.'s search engine over the next four to five years.
The vocal activist also used the stage to pepper in some of his widely known critical views of the Democratic party. While he was a little kinder to presidential candidate Barack Obama than he had been at a late May investor conference, he said that a Democratic Senate coupled with an Obama presidency would be a "major, major death knell to this economy," adding that Democratic spending could send inflation soaring. "We need over 40 Republican senators to be a firewall [against big spending]." - Michael Rudnick
See story about letters to Bostock from Tech Confidential
See story about Icahn's Obama comments from Dealscape
See video of Icahn's comedy routine about Leon Black from Dealscape
Comments
Carl Icahn for President.