Carl Icahn

The son of a cantor and a school teacher, Carl C. Icahn was a medical school dropout when he began his career on wall Street in 1961. Seven years later, he founded his own securities trading firm, Icahn & Co. At first, his firm specialized in traditional arbitrage and options trading, but in the late 1970s. Icahn embarked on a series of daring investment ventures that led the financial press to dub him Wall Street's foremost "corporate raider." He sought undervalued companies, ones with unexploited assets, and management teams out of touch with their shareholders. Icahn would buy a significant share of stock, demand a seat on the board and begin demanding changes. Within a matter of months, the value of the company’s shares typically rose and Icahn could sell his stake at a substantial profit. Many of America's most famous companies have felt the Icahn touch, including RJR Nabisco, TWA, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Uniroyal, Marshall Field's, Culligan, Samsonite, American