King Icahn: The Biography of a Renegade Capitalist - Softcover

Stevens, Mark; Stevens, Carol Bloom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1494348926 ISBN 13: 9781494348922

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

King Icahn is an unparalleled human drama. It is the story of a man who rose from humble beginnings to emerge as the most powerful, eccentric, galling, pugnacious and successful force in the business world. The Icahn drama is rife with contradictions, juxtapositions, paradoxes and epic power plays. All have led to a reshuffling of the business\financial landscape, to the electric fear on the part of CEOs when they hear the terrorizing words "Carl Icahn is on the phone" and to one of the world's greatest fortunes. King Icahn is the only book written about Icahn, completely independent but with full access to the man himself. It reveals the back story of the greatest financier/pit bull of his generation, his multi-billion dollar epiphany, his real motive for taking on the CEO elite as well as his loves, feuds, idiosyncrasies and intellectual brilliance. Reading this book is the equivalent of earning an MBA squared!

About this title

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. He is known for delivering business insights with blunt truths and unconventional wisdom. Stevens’ firm, MSCO, represents a stellar roster of clients including Nike, Starwood, GE, Guardian Life, Intrawest, Estee Lauder, The MONY Group, Environmental Systems Products, Virgin Air, and many others. Through integrated marketing campaigns, MSCO focuses on achieving real 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 in 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 at organizations from Wharton, Nike, and Oracle. A frequent guest commentator, he lends his insights and opinions on a wide variety of marketing/branding topics on Fox Business Network, Associated Press, CNN International and Bloomberg TV to CNBC, MSNBC, NPR and Bloomberg Radio on the annual subject of Super Bowl Advertising to Before You Tie the Knot: Tips on Creating a Successful Business Partnership (Wall Street Journal), Why Successful Business People Don’t Sleep (The New York Times) and Be A Better Boss (Forbes.com). Steven’s wildly successful blog, “Unconventional Thinking” is ranked among the “Top 10 Marketing Blogs in the World” by blogged.com. Stevens shook the marketing establishment with his Business Week bestseller, Your Marketing Sucks (Random House/Crown Business, 2003), and redefined the rules of management with Your Management Sucks (Random House/Crown Business, 2006). His most recent book, Your Company Sucks focuses on the Four Reasons ALL Companies Fail. Stevens is the author of 25 business books including these bestsellers: The Big Eight; Your Marketing Sucks; Sudden Death: The Rise and Fall of EF Hutton (a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Library Journal “Business Book of the Year”). Books by Mark Stevens have been published in the USA, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China, Germany, Spain, Japan, Russia, and Brazil.

From Kirkus Reviews:

As this savvy, tellingly detailed rundown on the top gun in the megabuck takeover battles of the 1980's makes clear, even Robert Ringer (Winning Through Intimidation, etc.) could have learned a thing or two from Carl Icahn. Drawing on apparently unrestricted access to the hitherto publicity-shy raider, as well as to his associates, adversaries, and family, Stevens (The Big Six, etc.) offers a sympathetic if unsparing portrait that's longer on professional than personal perspectives. The author gives short shrift to the Princeton- educated Icahn's working-class background, focusing instead on his epic face-offs against the likes of Hammermill Paper, Phillips Petroleum, Texaco, and USX. Stevens's behind-the-scenes accounts of his subject's ability to best fat cats in deal after deal is well worth the price of admission--and the author also takes the measure of a complex man. While giving Icahn full marks for brains and brass, he leaves little doubt that he was a merciless antagonist who gave no quarter. Nor did the arguable propriety of accepting so-called ``greenmail'' (invariably paid at the expense of fellow owners) appear to trouble this outspoken advocate of accountability, good governance, and shareholder rights. Icahn's comeuppance (such as it was) came in the wake of a fight to gain control of TWA. While the erstwhile nemesis of big business escaped with his skin, he found the experience of running a debt-burdened airline to be, if not humbling, at least chastening. Icahn's career as one of Wall Street's most aggressive investors has since taken a new turn, purportedly one in which he attempts to salvage value from failed enterprises. But that is another story--and one that many readers will hope that Stevens finds time to tell. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1494348926
• ISBN 13: 9781494348922
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 266