King Icahn: The Biography of a Renegade Capitalist [Hardcover]

Mark Stevens (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1993

Recounts the life of legendary financier Carl Icahn, including his raid on Phillips Petroleum, his takeover of TWA, and more. By the author of Sudden Death: The Rise and Fall of E.F. Hutton. 35,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"One of the greatest things I did for the human race," Carl Icahn has said, "was not to become a doctor." Instead, this Princeton graduate from Queens, N.Y., became a keen and stubborn corporate raider, who during the 1980s junk-bond delirium parlayed leveraged cash investments into partially controlling interests (and eventually very profitable sales of shares) in such companies as Phillips Petroleum, Dan River, Texaco and TWA. The other high-flyers--Ivan Boesky, T. Boone Pickens, Dennis Levine and Michael Milken--also appear here. In this unauthorized biography, based on research and on "virtually unlimited access" to the financier, Icahn emerges as a crafty but apparently straight player, to whom millions of dollars poured in yearly, until the U.S. Congress called a halt to junk-bond-financed leveraged buyouts in 1991. Like a taut novel, this page turner grips the reader as Stevens ( Sudden Death: E. F. Hutton ) dramatizes Icahn's financial gambles and acerbic treatment of top management figures, whom he often accuses of poor and despotic performance to the detriment of stockholders.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Carl Icahn was one of the most infamous American corporate raiders of the 1980s. Born in an obscure middle-class New York community, he quickly developed a scrappy, street-fighter attitude that helped him get into and through Princeton, land a job on Wall Street, and go on to become one of the most feared antagonists of corporate America. The book shows repeatedly how Icahn bought up stakes in undervalued companies and then threatened their management until they caved into his demands, eventually allowing him to cash out with enormous profits. Only later in his life did he falter with the buyout of TWA and its ensuing bankruptcy. While Icahn's days as financial engineer may be over, there is no denying his impact upon the American corporate landscape, especially in the areas of shareholder rights and more active boards of directors willing to challenge business executives. This book by business writer Stevens is suitable for large nonfiction/biography collections in public libraries.
- Richard Drezen, Merrill Lynch Lib., New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; 1st edition (June 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525936130
• ISBN-13: 978-0525936138
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #261,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Stevens is a best selling author, CEO of MSCO, a results-driven management and marketing firm, and a popular media commentator on a host of business matters including marketing, branding, management and sales. Mr. Stevens is known for delivering business insights with blunt truths and unconventional wisdom.

Stevens shook the marketing establishment with his Business Week best seller, "Your Marketing Sucks" (Random House/Crown Business), and redefined the rules of management with "Your Management Sucks" (Random House/Crown Business, 2006).

Stevens' latest book, Your Company Sucks: It's Time To Declare War On Yourself (to be published Aug 2, 2011)idetifies the four reasons companies fail or simply get stuck in neutral and how to identify and address them so the business can break through the ice to new levels of success. Stevens also demonstrates that "customer satisfaction" is no longer acceptable: winning companies must Thrill their customers/clients.

Stevens is the author of 24 business-related books including the best sellers: "The Big Eight"; "King Icahn"; "Sudden Death: The Rise and Fall of EF Hutton" (a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Library Journal "Business Book of the Year"); and the enormously popular "Your Marketing Sucks."

Stevens' firm, MSCO--founded in 1995-- has representsed a stellar roster of clients including Nike, Starwood, GE, Guardian Life, Intrawest, Estee Lauder, The MONY group, Environmental Systems Products, Saturday Evening Post , Virgin Atlantic, and many others.. Through integrated marketing campaigns, MSCO focuses on achieving results for its clients instead of awards that serve egos. Mark Stevens possesses an innovative and iconoclastic view of the business world, having served as a journalist and nationally syndicated columnist and having held management positions at several global corporations. His incisive understanding of critical business issues is geared toward achieving extraordinary growth and success for his clients.

Stevens is an in-demand speaker and a frequent guest commentator on Fox Business Channel and a wide range of media from Entrepreneur to Dow Jones.

Stevens writes the wildly successful blog, "Unconventional Thinking."

Books by Mark Stevens have been published in USA, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China, Germany, Spain, Japan, Russia and Brazil.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Carl Icahn___ a brilliant Shylock, August 11, 2000

By 

W.Khan - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Icahn: The Biography of a Renegade Capitalist (Hardcover)

An interesting & detailed look into the hunting methods & machinations of the notorious corporate raider of the 1980's , Carl Icahn . A shylock-like shady character from Brooklyn ,Icahn comes across as a brilliant Machiavellian Wall Street shark whose humble lower middle class origins seemed to have whetted his appetite for his soon to be corporate preys.Interestingly , like some other legendary investors ( George Soros , Jim Rogers, Benjamin Graham etc) Icahn was drawn to philosophy from an early age and went on to study it at Princeton ______after all Schopenhaur himself was a hard-nosed savvy investor! Also like most legendary investors he grew up poor .This book dissects in detail the anatomy of Icahn's raids on Texaco , TWA and others, along with the doomed(for most investors) but brilliant(for Icahn & his clique) concept of taking control of susceptible companies through leveraged buyouts financed with junk bonds & subsequently selling off the family silver to line his own pocket! He also perfected the art of "greenmail" by blackmailing vulnerable managements and thus enriching himself at the expense of his fellow shareholders . Icahn comes across as a lean,mean, street-smart SOB who had the brains and the chutzpah to take on the most entrenched managements on Wall Street .

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not as Good as Other Books on Deal Makers, April 16, 2006

By 

Ng Wai Yip - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Icahn: The Biography of a Renegade Capitalist (Hardcover)

This is a mediocre biography and a poorly written book on deal making. While it does shed some light on the character of Carl Icahn, it does a lousy job of describing and analysing the deals involved. The author, from time to time, mentions how many shares of a target company Icahn had acquired but never tell the readers how many percentage of interest in a company those shares represent. Or, the author tell you Icahn made several millions in a particular deal, but never points out how much Icahn has invested in the first place. This makes it very hard for the readers to follow the deal and to see how great Ichan is at doing deals.

If readers are interested in deal making, I highly recommend "The Vulture Investors" by Rosenberg. Actually, for those who are interested in Icahn's life, reading a few chapters from "The Vulture Investor" and "Predator's Ball" is even better than reading the whole of this book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Unadulterated Capitalism - Renegade Style, February 2, 2006

By 

Kevin Kingston (ny) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: King Icahn: The Biography of a Renegade Capitalist (Hardcover)

King Icahn: The Biography of a Renegade Capitalist, by Mark Stevens

"If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ` em up with worn out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them "hold on!"

If you can talk with the crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With 60 seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!"

-Rudyard Kipling, "Brother Square-Toes"
-Rewards and Fairies,
A verse Icahn says has influenced
his business career from the earliest days.

From starting out as a stock broker at the age of 24 with Dreyfus & Co. in 1961 just as the Street was in the midst of a roaring bull market Carl worked his net worth up to around $100k only to lose it in the inevitable downturn associated with the stock markets boom bust style.

"That the stock market had bested him, would prove for Icahn to be a blessing in disguise." He decided to move into options and as most brokers do changed firms a few times, ending up at Gruntal and Co. to build an options department. "..He had a finely tuned antenna for finding where the money was and partaking of it"

Anyone in the brokerage business or in any sales job will love the stories about Carl building his business in a true aggressive Wall Street salesman style.

Ready to move on to bigger and more challenging ventures, Carl convinces his uncle to put up $400,000 so he can buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. He promises an 8% return plus some equity in the new company. Without giving away too much more of the story I can say that it is a truly inspiring, step by step explanation of how Carl worked his way from a $100 a week broker trainee to owning his own small brokerage firm to a mega corporate raider or, "renegade capitalist" with detailed corporate battles along the way.

The book really hit home for me as having worked on Wall Street for 11 years, including about 3 years at Gruntal & Co. and similar to Icahn moving on to more challenging ventures. I read the book in the early stages of building, along with my partner a $25,000,000 real estate holding company in 5 years. It was one of the many books that gave me the push to keep doing deals and growing the company. My other reviews and blog ( bloglines.com/blog/KevinKingston ) cover similar inspiring business books.

By Kevin Kingston, Author of, A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate