Carl Icahn: “King Kong” takes a bite of McDonald’s

Legendary corporate raider Carl Icahn is showing a softer side, taking a slice of fast-food giant McDonald’s to improve animal welfare. No doubt he is seeking to secure his legacy too.

Carl Icahn
(Image credit: © Heidi Gutman/Getty Images)

In his terrifying heyday, the veteran corporate raider Carl Icahn went by the moniker “King Kong” on Wall Street. He was also known as “The Lone Wolf” and “The Great White Shark”. At 86, the fearless boardroom challenger is still predatory, says the Financial Times.

His latest prey is McDonald’s, where he has installed two new directors and is agitating for change. So far, so Icahn. What really surprised observers, though, was his stated rationale, which showed a distinctly “softer side”. He doesn’t like the way McDonald’s suppliers treat their pigs.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.