Michael Dell after his experience with Carl Icahn [1] and the bitter battle to take his company private.
“It’s a big poker game to him [Carl Icahn],” says Dell. “It’s not about the customers. It’s not about the people. It’s not about changing the world. He doesn’t give a crap about any of that. He didn’t know whether we made nuclear power plants or French fries. He didn’t care.”
promising that if Apple heeds his advice, he won’t sell off any of his approximately 53 million shares.
If he really thinks the stock is undervalued, why would he sell in the absence of a share buyback anyway? If he is right then surely he should be buying those shares himself and waiting as the buyback would only be bringing forward a rise, not creating it.
I'm sure most people have heard about Icahn. But if not check out his Wikipedia page to see a list of investments he's gone activist on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Icahn
He sure isn't the kind of hedge fund manager that sits behind a desk and stares at his Bloomberg terminal all day:)
The man is 78, and worth 23 billion and he's still picking fights, I hope I have that kind of energy when I get that old, maybe not the fight picking part:)
EDIT to be clear, I'm not making a judgement on his character or if he's a net positive to the market. You may see him as good or bad.
From what I read from him, I can only feel that he's one of the example of what's wrong with capitalism. He only serves himself (Pump & dump, Herbalife, etc.)
He's been a cancer to any company that he's invested in. Check the Family Dollar history. Force owner to sell, then when a serious offer shows up, he sells his share before the deal is closed.
I would be surprised if Cook did not read it. Its not that lengthy, and Icahn does own just a bit under 1% of the company, if I did my math right(53M shares * 100.98 / 596B market cap).
I might be in the minority here, but I want to see Icahn pump-and-dump Apple. Now that Jobs is gone, there is nobody running the ship that is competent enough to stop Icahn. He'll devalue the company, and bleed it dry if allowed, just like he's trying to do with eBay right now. And this makes me happy as a clam; Now that Microsoft is steadily marching toward irrelevance, it'd be peachy keen if we could take down the usurper to that throne (Apple), and give the GNU/Linux and BSD families the attention they rightfully deserve.
Could you imagine? if Icahn bled Apple to death, Ubuntu would be the 800lb Gorilla.
“It’s a big poker game to him [Carl Icahn],” says Dell. “It’s not about the customers. It’s not about the people. It’s not about changing the world. He doesn’t give a crap about any of that. He didn’t know whether we made nuclear power plants or French fries. He didn’t care.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/you-w...