Decades ago, Carl Icahn gained a formative insight from reading the American novelist Theodore Dreiser. The billionaire investor was absorbed by two of Dreiser’s novels, The Financier and The Titan, which chronicle the rise of industrialist Frank Cowperwood.
In a decisive financial stand-off, Cowperwood’s adversaries plot to have a bank call in his large personal debts. But unbeknown to them, Cowperwood holds a large reserve of assets that “could be drawn on and hypothecated”. Were it to be deployed, Dreiser writes, “these men should see at last how powerful he was and how secure”. Cowperwood prevails and Icahn says he learnt an essential lesson: always have a “war chest” of cash.
The 87-year-old is famed for his decades spent orchestrating shareholder fights with companies including Texaco, Trans World Airlines, Apple and McDonald’s. These battles have reshaped US financial markets by changing how corporations are run, steering their management towards the interests of large stockholders like Icahn.