Would Carl Icahn’s memoirs be titled How To Lose Friends And Influence People?
Activist investor Icahn has been proving divisive in recent months by spearheading a campaign to get Apple to carry out a $150 billion stock buyback (which he later dropped to “just” $50 billion).
Well, it’s difficult to be as outspoken as Icahn without certain other investors speaking out about you — and that’s exactly what Anne Simpson, head of corporate governance at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, has done.
Noting on Thursday that the pension plan, which owns around $1.3 billion of Apple stock, is happy with Cupertino’s announced plan for its capital and therefore won’t be supporting Icahn’s buyback push, Simpson referred to Icahn as a “raider” and a “Johnny come lately” when it comes to Apple investing.
“We are uncomfortable with a raider coming into a company with a proposal to disgorge cash,” Simpson said. She also described Icahn’s tweets regarding a recent dinner he had with Apple CEO Tim Cook as “unseemly.”
In an interview with The New York Times last month, Simpson suggested that “shareholder activism is evolving from barbarians at the gate to acting like owners.”
Source: Bloomberg
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
