Investor Carl Icahn joined Bloomberg Television’s Trish Regan today and said Apple (AAPL) is undervalued, J.C. Penney (JCP) is very hard to read and that if we do not change our corporate bureaucracies we will become a second-rate country. Icahn declined to say how much he made on Dell (DELL) investment.
Icahn on whether he is rolling the dice seeking an appraisal of Dell:
“Usually these appraisals work our pretty well. We think that it is worth [it]. We do have the right to give the appraisal rights for 60 Days after the merger goes through. We have a fair amount of time to decide. From our point of view; it is almost a no-brainer to decide later if we are going to do it.”
On how much Dell is worth and what he would like a judge to decide:
“I have not really thought that out. We are in 10 deals right now. From our point of view, while we lost and I am somewhat saddened by that, we came out making a fair amount of money; we did the work the board should have done. The board acted in a horrendous way. They caved in. I congratulated Michael. I think he did it out of self-interest, which will make some sense. Why the board just gave the company away, did not even do a true auction, it’s beyond me. I have said publicly. It took us to raise it $500 Million, 4600 Million more. If you buy a painting at Sotheby’s, the auctioneer doesn’t tell you the paining is scratched, here’s $25 million, don’t bid. This is the problem with America. There is no corporate democracy. As a country, we pride ourselves on democracy, and yet it is a dysfunctional corporate governance system. If it was changed, I’m hopeful that, with twitter, there may be enough chance to raise enough people to awareness about this and if it would change, this country would be a lot more productive. There would be a lot more jobs because executives would have to be accountable. CEO’s would have to be accountable. You could replace them. There is none of that. This is sort of a vicious cycle that goes on. It sounds tremendously corny. And I know it does. I came from Queens. Tough neighborhood. We had very little money. My mother was a school teacher. I have done so well because it is a great country and democracy is a great system when you have it. While our political system lacks somewhat, it is nothing like the corporate system. The reason I make so much money or one of the major reasons is because once you get into these companies and clean up the mess, there is so much more value. Look at this board. They are horrendous.”
On how much money he has made on Dell deal:
“It is tough to say. They gave a lot of extra dividends and what have you. It has been a bit complex. I think you could figure it out. I don’t think I should be talking about it. We did all right. That is not the issue. I think what happened here is tantamount to a dictatorship. A dictatorship does not call meetings. Maybe they will have one more election. These guys just keep going with it.”
On whether he is calling Michael Dell a dictator:
“I think Michael Dell was smart. I congratulate him. I think the board was horrendous. That’s what I have said. And this guy did a terrible job, in my opinion. But Michael Dell, I congratulate.”
On Dell’s board being a dictatorship:
“They follow the laws, but the laws allow you to do what they did. I’m not even arguing what the judge said. We are going on twitter. I give my investment insight. Follow me on Twitter. If they had followed me on Apple, They would have made a lot of money.”
On how Dell stacks up against Apple and his thoughts on corporate bureaucracies:
“I think Apple is undervalues. If you just look at the numbers. The products are great. I’m not a technology guy but they are so cheap relative to their numbers that when I recommended it on Twitter or said that we owned it, we owned it cheaper than that. But it is still up 50 points. You get these sort of no-brainers. Dell is not a no-brainer. Dell does have problems. But Apple did not. Netflix did not. I am doing this on Twitter, getting my insights, because I want to build the following. If you have enough people, maybe something can be done with the horrible bureaucracy that exists. I think we should not have this. They spend shareholder’s money like in the feudal system. The baron would have castle. He would use the army to get money. I’ve made a lot of money doing this, but I will tell you this, if we don’t change, we are going to become a second-rate country. That’s one of the reasons we are not competitive. That’s one of the reasons things have to change. I hope we can accomplish something along these lines. I really do care.”
On whether he is looking at JC Penney:
“No, I think that is a company that is very hard to read which way it will go. I have no comment on that.”
On Netflix:
“We still own it. We have not sold a share. Netfilx (NFLX) is another one of those things that was a no-brainer back when it was 58. I still think it is a good buy. We do think that it has a great model. They start the year with 2.5 Billion dollars flowing into them. It is hard to beat that and hard to compete with that. That’s the thing I think a lot of analysts miss. It is a monetary thing. You have so much money coming in. People love it. Reed Hastings is doing a great job. He has done a great job so far. I hope you will continue to do so.”
Videos for viewing here, here.
Courtesy of Bloomberg Television
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