Fighting with the "Wolf of Wall Street" Carl Icahn

 　　Carl Icahn has been hailed as "the most successful speculator on the planet", and famous American companies such as TWA, Texaco, Apple, Yahoo, eBay, and Motorola have all fallen into his "prey". Like a wolf king, he made the executives of major companies on Wall Street tremble.

　　In order to successfully complete Carl Icahn's personal biography, writer Mark Stevens and the "Wolf of Wall Street" frequently exchanged moves and launched a five-month-long "tug of war".

　　Carl Icahn first appeared on my radar in the spring of 1992. I had heard in countless news reports about what he was doing on Wall Street, but when I saw this tall lanky man walking across the country lawn in my hometown of Bedford, New York, USA, a feeling of saying no suddenly sprang up. Unknown kindness.

　　My brain started spinning.

　　"Is the guy who walked into the country hotel in faded tennis shorts and a crumpled top, the legendary corporate predator to be feared, or just someone who looks like him? If he's really Icahn himself, What's he doing in such a peaceful Bedford?"

　　I wanted to approach this guy, but hesitated because I thought it was probably a local who looked like him, and he probably didn't have any interest in Icahn, or Nothing to do with him. However, that face still moved me. When I got home, I called a neighbor who knew everything about Bedford. He answered immediately, it was this man.

　　"Oh, I'm sure he's Carl. Don't you know he lives here? His home is huge—a hundred or two hundred acres, and it's just down Langmeido Road. He was wearing what looked like pajamas, right? That's Icahn's style." And

　　so this part of my journey began. First, I went to Langmeidu Road and drove all the way to the gate of the pig iron gate of his house. My curiosity about the mysterious man behind the gate was piqued, and I wanted to know who he was, where he came from, how much wealth he had, and how he became the richest man in America. I started going through all the sources about him, trying to find these answers.

　　I found him to be a bit of a speculator, definitely a financial genius, but also someone who likes to threaten people. He used to fight big business organizations, forcing them to do things according to his demands. In fact, in every case, these industry leaders have used lawyers as firewalls to try to protect themselves, and they have done everything that can stop Icahn's progress, but in the end, they still have to retreat or obey him. That's where his wealth came from. In my head, Icahn was like a lionhound, jumping on top of those company CEOs (CEOs), biting their veins with his teeth and tearing them apart as his prey.

　　There are very few specific details about his deal, and if there is, it's only an outline. The most intriguing thing is that I can't find anything about himself like what made him passionate, where did he come from, who was behind him, why he lived in Bedford, he How is his family life (if he has a family). Given that he is a major force in U.S. business, a name that terrifies executives, the lack of more detail on the subject itself feels odd.

　　I decided to change this phenomenon.

　　That's when I managed to get his home phone number and called his home. Surprisingly, it was him who answered the phone.

　　"Carl, I'm your Bedford neighbor Mark Stevens."

　　As he was silent, I could guess he was thinking, "Who is Mark Stevens? "

　　If it's about horses," Karl said suddenly, with obvious anger, "I've made up my mind. I don't want horse trails on my estate.

　　" proud of the horseback riding tour route. The town allows Bedfordians to ride across your land. But Icahn has never admired horseback riding, especially since it is a typical activity of the white aristocratic elite, and Icahn has an innate aversion to the activities of the so-called elite.

　　"It has nothing to do with horses at all," I said. "I'm going to write a book about you, and I think you should know about it. Maybe there's a chance to do an interview with you."

　　There was silence on the other end of the phone. I'm like an uninvited guest lingering at someone else's door.

　　"Absolutely not," Icahn finally replied.

　　"Don't you agree to let me interview you?"

　　"I'm not referring to that."

　　"So can you explain which one you're referring to?"

　　Based on my previous research on him, Icahn is definitely not that kind of "friendly" type, but I still oversimplify the difficulty of negotiating.

　　Icahn quickly became impatient: "You don't get what I mean, who's who."

　　"So what do you mean?"

　　"Don't publish a book. Zero possibility. No possibility. Don't make that up."

　　I thought When it came time for me to play the predator role.

　　"You're wrong, Carl," I said calmly, calling him by his first name on purpose. "I'm writing a biography of you, and you'll have to write it without you."

　　Again silence. Then, Icahn was obviously furious: "Even if you only write one sentence, I will sue you mercilessly, and sue you on a large scale, so that you will have no food and only soup in the future."

　　"Wow, Carl, that's how you treat your neighbors?"

　　I waited about 10 seconds and then fired the first arrow at him: "Well, I hope you can at least come to the publishing house's party when the book comes out.

　　" Thus began a five-month tug-of-war, filled with numerous threats, numerous late-night phone calls, all kinds of intimidation, and threats of imminent lawsuits. But two things remained the same: I decided to write the book, and Icahn decided to stop me.

　　In the process of these events, I have started interviewing a group of people who have been on Wall Street at the time - many people have a bad impression of Icahn.

　　As the CEO of an M&A firm put it: "Carl's dream is to own the only firetruck in town. When your house is on fire, he can blackmail you and squeeze every penny out of you."

　　In our marathon conversation, all Icahn initiated was one threat after another. I've made it clear that I'm not going to write about him if he doesn't want to cooperate. But he's determined to nip the book in the bud, so no matter what I say, he doesn't change his mind.

　　Until one day, he called me in the early morning.

　　"Well, Stevens, why don't we try to write this book as a partner?" That's

　　right, there's a breakthrough? Or that's just my wishful thinking.

　　Carl's suggestion was to sign a partnership agreement. He promised to tell me about his own life. In return, he would pay 37% of the fees and royalties. Guess who gets the "seven"? Of course I objected, and after weeks of back and forth on the "fair" deal, we talked about 35‥65 from 37 to 42‥58, to 45‥55, and finally got me to agree Divided into only fifty-five.

　　After this determination, Carr had his lawyers get a 37-page formal written agreement.

　　I thought, why would Icahn care so much about the allocation of advance fees? Even if the book became a bestseller, the cost would be trivial by his economic standards. At first I chalked it up to his greed for every dollar, but I had a clue one night after I played him in straight sets with him and found him still brooding about the loss at dinner . Carl has no interest in sharing what and when with others. What he wants is that, with this agreement, he can have a limited right to review the manuscript, suspend the writing of the book, make changes to the text, or simply kill the book directly. It's all about proving that he's far smarter than me, and right from the start: no biography should ever be written.

　　Another time he and I sat down for dinner after a tennis loss at Lang Meadows, which we are used to having at one o'clock in the morning. The servants, accustomed to the strange working hours of their masters, casually brought us a small salad with cold dishes and roasted chicken. Oddly enough, Icahn bought the manor he now lives in from actor Jennifer O'Neill, who was drawn to its majestic core at the time - a stone English mansion like an early 20th century British film A building in The Long Days End. But Carl decided to leave the house empty and live in another upper-middle-class, very ordinary house built on the estate. He told me, "This big house needs some repairs, and it's going to cost about $6 million. I don't want to spend that much money to fix this house." .)

　　After dinner, I gave him a prepared message that I knew he was going to get mad at.

　　"I've decided not to sign this deal, Carl, I'm going to finish the book on my own."

　　Icahn then started spouting a lot of rhetoric to hide his true intentions: what would be fun to work with, we've made an agreement, legal action will cost him a little money, he should Be tougher on me, you must resort to the law, this book can't be written, and so on. He was so angry that he woke his wife, Liba, by talking loudly—their relationship wasn't a good one, it was a make-believe at best. She warned Icahn: "Keep your voice down, Carl, I'm going to sleep."

　　I know Icahn has a tried-and-true method of stalking him to the end (he can take on a torture team by himself) if I don't stop him , he can play chess with me all night. But I had no interest (which drove him crazy), said goodbye to him, and left.

　　In fact, I've made up my mind: I'm not going to write this book with Icahn, no matter what he says, no matter how threatened and tricked he is. I know how important it is to have creative freedom and journalistic independence. No matter what Carl does, I believe I can handle it.

　　It's funny how Carl started out tough on me - the arrogant man in the universe will always do what he thinks - but ended up being a reasonable, flexible and even highly cooperative person. After a month of confrontation (he refused to play tennis with me or have a regular dinner with me in a restaurant), he called me at 9‥30 on a Sunday morning and sent me a surprise invite.

　　"Let's get started, Mark."

　　I wonder if this is another move for him.

　　"Start what?"

　　"Don't you want to write a book?"

　　"I'm already doing it, Carl."

　　"Okay, okay. But you want the inside story, or you've changed your mind?"

　　"Of course not . . Definitely want the insider. But Carl, it's unconditional."

　　"My only condition is that you do justice."

　　On many occasions, Carl told me that he did not believe that "justice" really existed, especially in on the mall.

　　"If the two sides of the negotiation sit down and come up with a solution, such as how to allocate 100 million yuan, usually the fair way is 50 to 50." Icahn said, "But I want to get 100%. Why should I be against any Are you satisfied with an allocation below 100%?"

　　He talked about the distribution of royalties as a pretense, which was meant to hide its true purpose, which was to prevent the book from being published and get 100%.

　　But when Icahn said, "Let's get started," it was surprising that he meant it this time. He has decided to tell me all about his background, motivations, purposes, drives, arguments that have happened and even a lot about his personal life, the marriage that let him down and his private feelings about his then personal assistant.

　　The question is "why?" although in the first few months, we avoided that question in our open and honest conversations on various occasions. But as I got a taste of the intensity of our conversation and the depth of his talk, I began to realize what made him make that change. The man in front of him usually dresses and speaks and never cares about what others think of him. In fact, deep down, he sincerely hopes that an independent writer can write a book about his life for him, so that people all over the world can read it. read.

　　I think Carl Icahn himself would be surprised by such a sudden increase in vanity.

　　One final note: there are many qualities to such a detached, relatively unloved man, but he is by far the smartest person I have had the pleasure of knowing.