USX, Icahn Have Polite Confrontation

USX Corp.’s annual meeting Monday, where 600 shareholders packed a junior high school here, was the scene of a polite confrontation between USX management and Carl C. Icahn, the corporate raider who is the company’s largest shareholder.

Icahn has been pushing a proxy proposal calling for management to split the company into two firms, one oil and one steel, in order to increase the value of the firm’s stock. The proxy fight over Icahn’s non-binding proposal thus dominated the 2 1/2-hour annual meeting. Icahn took the floor himself for 10 minutes, going over his arguments in support of the breakup.

The results of the shareholder voting on Icahn’s proposal won’t be known for several days, but it appears that Icahn knows he won’t win.

Alfred Kingsley, Icahn’s top aide, said Monday that he believes that several large institutional investors did not vote with Icahn.

But if Icahn gets a solid block of support, that could still put pressure on USX, and especially on its outside directors, to come up with an alternative plan to increase the stock’s value.

USX Chairman Charles Corry, however, did not offer any new alternatives Monday.

Still, the Icahn camp had no complaints about the annual meeting.

Kingsley said management “was pretty fair in the way they handled the meeting, they gave everybody a chance to talk.”