There was a day when Carl Icahn and his ilk were derided as greenmailers. Fortune puts it eloquently: "The rap on Icahn has been that he's a fast-buck artist who uses a limited bag of tricks to give stocks a sharp but often ephemeral boost." But the reality these days is that activist investors are probably good for the market. Icahn in particular. "Believe it or not, (Icahn) in his fourth decade of dealmaking, may be making more money for shareholders than any other activist on the planet." To be sure, Icahn now has the heft and name to take on some huge companies--Motorola and Time Warner. He may not win board seats all the time, but CEOs are put on notice. And that's a third of the battle. There's still a bit of the old school guy in the 71 year old investor.

For more:
- here's the article from Fortune