Many CEOs are unhappy with activist investor Carl Icahn for the changes he has forced on their companies. But Icahn says the problem lies with the CEOs, not activist investing.
"We must change our system of selecting CEOs in order to stay competitive and get us out of an extremely dangerous financial situation," he writes on
Yahoo.
"With exceptions, I believe that too many companies in this country are terribly run, and there’s no system in place to hold the CEOs and boards of these inadequately managed companies accountable."
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Shareholders have to recognize their power and utilize it, Icahn explains. "Shareholders, the true owners of our companies, can demand that mediocre CEOs are held accountable and make it clear that they will be replaced if they are failing."
That will improve corporate performance and boost employment, he writes.
Meanwhile, Icahn says that recent comments from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen "suggest, and I agree, that we are in an asset bubble."
The S&P 500 has soared 190 percent from its March 2009 low.
Star mutual fund manager
John Hussman, president of Hussman Investment Trust, shares Icahn's bubble assessment, at least on stocks.
"Make no mistake: this is an equity bubble, and a highly advanced one," he wrote in a commentary last month. "On the most historically reliable measures, it is easily beyond 1972 and 1987, beyond 1929 and 2007, and is now within about 15 percent of the 2000 extreme."
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