David Roderick
Strategic Concepts & Mechanics
Primary Evidence
"Kingsley’s office is a reminder that while he might have made more of a name for himself and more money on Wall Street if he had left Icahn’s shadow, at Icahn and Company he has been free to be—himself. Stacks of the Financial Times, waiting to be clipped, climb halfway to the ceiling on one side of the room; the window behind Kingsley’s desk is nearly obscured by mountains of 10Ks, annual reports, prospectuses; and Kingsley himself is barely discernible behind the cascading piles of papers that rise from his desk. “Mount Everest,” remarked a secretary as she tossed a letter onto the top. From beneath his desk, on his visitor’s side, papers spill. And there, too, rest unpacked cartons from the peregrinations of Icahn and Company over the past two decades—one from 42 Broadway, one from 25 Broadway. Out of this strange, unsightly chaos has come what Kingsley says with some pride is the “overwhelming majority” of Icahn’s targets. He selects, then he proposes, debates, sometimes is rejected by Icahn. But they have been together for twenty years, and he has a good sense of what will persuade. When Kingsley was arguing for USX, where chairman David Roderick and the steelworkers’ union had been at each others’ throats, he said, “You know, Carl, you could do again with the unions what you did in TWA.” And he is more than Icahn’s analyst. Once Icahn is in the midst of a deal, Kingsley is his constant sounding board, really his co-strategist, and they often attend negotiating sessions together."
"Kingsley’s office is a reminder that while he might have made more of a name for himself and more money on Wall Street if he had left Icahn’s shadow, at Icahn and Company he has been free to be—himself. Stacks of the Financial Times, waiting to be clipped, climb halfway to the ceiling on one side of the room; the window behind Kingsley’s desk is nearly obscured by mountains of 10Ks, annual reports, prospectuses; and Kingsley himself is barely discernible behind the cascading piles of papers that rise from his desk. “Mount Everest,” remarked a secretary as she tossed a letter onto the top. From beneath his desk, on his visitor’s side, papers spill. And there, too, rest unpacked cartons from the peregrinations of Icahn and Company over the past two decades—one from 42 Broadway, one from 25 Broadway. Out of this strange, unsightly chaos has come what Kingsley says with some pride is the “overwhelming majority” of Icahn’s targets. He selects, then he proposes, debates, sometimes is rejected by Icahn. But they have been together for twenty years, and he has a good sense of what will persuade. When Kingsley was arguing for USX, where chairman David Roderick and the steelworkers’ union had been at each others’ throats, he said, “You know, Carl, you could do again with the unions what you did in TWA.” And he is more than Icahn’s analyst. Once Icahn is in the midst of a deal, Kingsley is his constant sounding board, really his co-strategist, and they often attend negotiating sessions together."