Corporate thug Carl Icahn's Time Warner green

Was it all a show for Wall Street so the stock could move? After launching a very open and mean campaign against Time Warner to break up the company, Carl Icahn backed off after a private chat with Time Warner big bear Dick Parsons. The company is still whole and Icahn recently pocketed a sweet $880 million after selling off 35 million shares, or 65 percent of his total stake, in the over sized media company. Did he have a private chat with Dick Parsons to say "OK I think I said enough bad things about the company and made enough threats. That should get the stock moving" ? The stock closed at $21.65 yesterday. When Icahn launched his campaign against TW on Aug. 15, 2005, the company's shares had gone three years without touching $20, closing that day at $18.50. Icahn's antagonism, which included claiming that Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons wasn't a media guy, provided just the jump start that the company needed. Parsons has admitted as much, crediting Icahn for helping the company accelerate plans to boost its lagging stock price. ICAHN DEPOSITS $880M TW BOUNTY [NYP]