AOL/Time Warner Watch:

What a great present having this settled by the end of the year would be … and what an unlikely one. Now Carl Icahn wants Time Warner to cough up the minutes of board meetings where, according to Steve Case, breaking up the company was discussed and vetoed. (SEC filing.) He also wants an accounting of PR spending by the company. (When is another shareholder going to ask for an accounting of how much Icahn’s effort is costing the company? Just curious.)

Keeping an Eye on Icahn: A scathing take on Icahn, who author James B. Stewart recalls from his own reporting days as “a notorious ‘greenmailer,’ a corporate raider” … “Based on past experience, I don’t entirely trust the new activist Icahn to function in the broader interest of Time Warner shareholders. *Chairman and CEO Richard) Parsons has delivered so far on his promises and has impressed me as someone with integrity. He has rightly stressed the need for a sound, long-term strategy, not just an attempt to make a quick killing. But it’s time to take the debate over Time Warner’s future out of the privacy of the boardroom and into the public arena.” He suggests that could help the company with investors.

Proxy Fight For Time Warner Predicted: Now that would be a shock …

Icahn Demands ‘Sunlight’ on Time Warner Meetings: Mentions that Case, who wrote on Sunday that he hadn’t spoken with Icahn, and Icahn since have talked.

When Breaking Up Is Not Hard to Do: Steve Pearlstein: “A cynic might conclude that the only people who reliably benefit from all this asset shuffling are the investment bankers who peddle the deals and the corporate executives who compensate themselves lavishly for pulling them off.” Also a chat transcript.
Update: Reuters: Influential investor Maria Gabelli will wait to make a decision about backing Icahn until he sees the proposed counter slate for the TW board of directors. Asked if AOL would be better off on its own, he replied, “At the moment, I don’t think so, but that could change.”

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