Turning Up the Heat

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Turning up the heat on Time Warner has risks. It could alienate shareholders Icahn will need if, as promised, he aims for a seat on the board next year. "I think Parsons has done a very good job," says Henry Berghoef, partner at Harris Associates, which holds $1.3 billion of Time Warner stock. Others see Icahn's criticism of Time Warner as playing Monday-morning quarterback. "It's hard to pick a date and say this is the way things should have gone," says James Goss, media analyst at Barrington Research. "Things were evolving." Then, paying off debt was critical, and something had to go. Parsons chose the troubled music division. Still, says Larry Haverty, money manager at Gabelli Asset Management, the value of the division today is $2 billion higher than the $2.6 billion it was sold for. If the stock doesn't jump soon, other shareholders say they'll welcome Icahn's push.

Icahn deplores wasted opportunity--he even rents out his yacht when he's not using it. His companies have more than $400 million in property up for sale because he believes the real-estate market is a bubble. He donated $10 million for a stadium project in Queens, N.Y., then negotiated to draw out the payments. Battling entrenched corporate bigwigs was a central tenet in his raising $2.5 billion for his own hedge fund. "I'm not Robin Hood," Icahn says, "but it's great when you can make a lot of money by helping all shareholders." Some would say that's just cover for his brand of opportunism. For Parsons, it doesn't really matter. Carl Icahn isn't folding. --With reporting by Unmesh Kher, Daren Fonda and Jyoti Thottam/New York