This will be my last comment on this because now the discussion seems even more illogical and self-contradictory to me. You're free to believe as you like.
I assume only one thing about Icahn -- that he wants to make money. (I don't think he cares what anybody thinks about him.) He will make more money over time if the warrants don't get exercised.
A company only becomes more attractive as a hostile takeover if the cash in the treasury is increasing without an accompanying increase in the share count. If you increase the share count all you've done is increase the total price of the company an acquirer has to pay. It's like if I have a $1 million home for sale and it's not selling. I go raise $250k from my friends with my great business idea to make the house more valuable. I now raise the price of my house to $1.25 million but in the listing I tell potential buyers there is $250,000 in cash in a safe inside the house. I accomplished nothing. I haven't increased the value of the house, it's still $1 million. But I've actually decreased the pool of available buyers because now they have to come up with $1.25m rather than $1m. If anything, I've made it less likely that someone will buy my home. On the other hand, if I had taken the $250k and added on significantly to the house or made some improvements, I might actually be able to raise the value of the home and now maybe I can sell for $1.5m rather than $1m.
With an operating company, when you raise money it becomes either dilutive or accretive based on what you do with the money. If a company raises money and just leaves it sitting in a bank account earning less than 1% interest, they will have diluted shareholders -- and over time it compounds. If they have a use for that money and can put it to work earning more per share than they are currently earning, then it's accretive -- a good thing -- and over time it compounds.
Warrants getting exercised are the equivalent of doing a stock offering.
Take a completely different company, let's call it Wiggins Industries. It has no warrants, it has one class of stock. Wiggins issues a press release telling shareholders that earnings have been great and cash is growing on the balance sheet and since it's more cash than they need, they are considering various ways to distribute the cash to shareholders -- dividends, special dividends, stock buybacks. Then the very next day the company puts out a press release announcing that they are doing a stock offering to raise cash. As a shareholder, I would not only be unbelievably confused, I'd be furious.
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I, nor anyone else that I can recall, is suggesting that Icahn would fight a hostile bid if one came. That's nonsense. If one comes tomorrow, great. I gave an example of this previously.
All I'm suggesting is that if a few days before expiration the stock price is near the strike price of the warrants, then it absolutely makes sense for him to push the stock price down for a couple of days to prevent the dilution from occurring. THAT would be sacrificing a few pawns to win the game (and he might even make money on that little operation.) The stock price will increase faster after that because there won't be 20% ongoing dilution. He will make more money. It could mean many tens of millions to Icahn over the coming years.
I realize that in all likelihood you will still believe differently, and that's fine.
