Matt Levine, Columnist

Carl Icahn Doesn't Even Want to Dignify EBay With a Proxy Fight

Icahn doesn't even think he should have to wage a proxy fight.

February 24, 2014 at 9:11 PM UTC

Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, he was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; and an editor of Dealbreaker.

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When we last checked in on Carl Icahn's efforts to get eBay Inc. to spin off PayPal Inc., a month ago, I speculated about why Icahn might be pursuing a proxy fight in such a big company. With only 0.82 percent of the shares, Icahn doesn't have a huge stake to anchor his dissident position, and has to rely solely on his persuasive abilities to get other shareholders to vote for him. But I didn't count on one factor, which is that Icahn doesn't even think he should have to wage a proxy fight:

What. What. What? Carl, it does not work that way. Does it? It would be amazing if you could win a proxy fight by just unilaterally declaring, "I shouldn't even be having this proxy fight, I am so right, you should just give me what I want right now."1