Unlike most CEOs captaining the ship of a Fortune 100 company, Time Warner's Dick Parsons is well-liked by just about everyone--even his peers. The
Financial Times reports that the likes of
News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, GE's Jeffrey Immelt, and Sony's Sir Howard Stringer have called Parsons to wish him well in his fight to stave off the shareholder revolt being organized by Carl Icahn and
Bruce Wasserstein. These fellow CEOs expressed their shock at Lazard's decision to advise Icahn in the proxy fight, as Lazard has long been thought to be an advisor of top CEOs, not investors. Icahn,
of course, has made a career out of targeting undervalued stocks, blaming the board of directors, and then having them overthrown. Time Warner is his most ambitious project yet. But as the article
points, all Parsons' peers can really do is wish him well; the rest depends on the stock's performance.
Read the whole story at Financial Times »
