Icahn Tries New Tack to Stir Things Up at Apple: His Own Web Site

Did Carl C. Icahn just change the rules of the activist game?

On Thursday, the septuagenarian activist investor who has been stirring things up at Apple, ratcheted up the pressure by posting a letter to Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, on his new Web site. The letter, which Mr. Cook received on Wednesday, urged Apple to immediately begin an offer to buy back $150 billion in Apple shares at the current share price of $525 a share, “financed with debt or a mix of debt and cash on the balance sheet.”

His letter goes on: “While this would certainly be unprecedented because of its size, it is actually appropriate and manageable relative to the size and financial strength of your company. Apple generates more than enough cash flow to service this amount of debt and has $147 billion of cash in the bank.”

He ends the letter by saying he does not plan to personally benefit from such a stock buyback. “To invalidate any possible criticism that I would not stand by this thesis in terms of its long term benefit to shareholders,” he writes, “I hereby agree to withhold my shares from the proposed $150 billion tender offer. There is nothing short term about my intentions here.”

Apple shares slipped 0.1 percent to $523.64 in morning trading.

The move to the Web is unusual, even for the outspoken Mr. Icahn who is known for taking a caustic approach with corporate executives. Activist investors like Mr. Icahn air their views through print and television media, but the letters they send to corporate executives typically find their way to the media through back channels.

But Mr. Icahn seems set to shake things up. He timed his letter to Mr. Cook to the introduction of his new Web site, the Shareholders’ Square Table. It’s an idea Mr. Icahn has had for some time. In an interview in 2005, he said that he was thinking of setting up a forum that would be “the shareholders’ answer to the business roundtable.”

A cartoon on the Web site’s main page depicts shareholders trying to scale the walls of a castle. Corporate executives are perched on top of the castle, throwing down poison pills, while slipping stock options and a new jet to a chief executive on the side. One executive is holding a bag of gold that says, “Cheap stock.”

Mr. Icahn has been publicly agitating since August for Apple to do something with its large cash reserves, using his personal account on Twitter as his platform to apply pressure. (He has 103,335 followers.)

The campaign began with a short tweet on Aug. 13, when Mr. Icahn announced that his firm Icahn Enterprises had a “large” position in Apple and said he thought the company was “extremely undervalued,” later adding that he had spoken with Mr. Cook.

A week later, Mr. Icahn tweeted that Mr. Cook “believes in a buyback” and that the size would be discussed over dinner. That dinner took place at Mr. Icahn’s apartment on Sept. 30. The following day, Mr. Icahn tweeted an update:

“Had a cordial dinner with Tim last night. We pushed hard for a 150 billion buyback. We decided to continue dialogue in about three weeks.”

But not wanting to limit his update to a 140-character tweet, Mr. Icahn took to CNBC to explain his view that Apple should borrow money through the debt markets to buy back shares and boost the share price.

Now he’s taken to an even more versatile platform to achieve his goals â€" his own Web site. If it this all seems carefully choreographed, that’s because it probably is. But, as Mr. Icahn said in 2005, he’s just fighting for shareholders’ rights.

Speaking about his idea for a new forum, he said, “Just maybe shareholders will get a square deal.”