Term Sheet The latest on private equity, M&A, deals and movements — from Wall Street to Silicon Valley

Is Carl Icahn creating a shareholder forum?

FORTUNE

By Dan Primack October 23, 2013: 3:53 PM ET

Carl Icahn launching new website tomorrow.

FORTUNE -- When Carl Icahn tweets, people listen. So right now there is a lot of attention being paid to this:

It obviously will be interesting to see what he says about Apple (AAPL), including if he discloses his current ownership position. But there also is a broader question of what type of site Icahn is planning to launch.

You may recall that the famed activist launched a blog called The Icahn Report back in early 2008. It remained bare for the first several months -- Icahn blamed his lawyers for red-lining his posts into oblivion -- before he hired Reuters hedge fund reporter Dane Hamilton. Then it began to populate both with posts penned by Icahn and various guests. But the last such post came the following April, and Icahn has since communicated via SEC letter, television appearance and (most recently) Twitter.

We've reached out to learn more about Shareholders' Square Table, which currently looks like this:

Capture

In the meantime, perhaps Icahn gave some clues in a New York Times Magazine interview from 2005. Check out this exchange:

What else can be done to turn a company around?

What I am thinking of doing is setting up the shareholders' answer to the business round table. You could have shareholders meet regularly to air their views and report company abuses. You call it the shareholders' ''square table.''

Why square?

Just maybe shareholders will get a square deal.

So is this a sort of public forum for shareholders of companies like Apple? Maybe where they can express their support for Icahn's share buyback plan? Certainly this would be much easier to do with today's social Internet than it was back in 2005, and it would make sense for an activist investor to demonstrate third-party support for his positions (outside of proxy fights). Or perhaps this is simply a way to agitate for more shareholder-friendly regulations.

If Icahn calls back, we'll update this post. If not, check out that site tomorrow morning...

This Forum program was open, free of charge, to anyone concerned with investor interests in the development of marketplace standards for expanded access to information for securities valuation and shareholder voting decisions. As stated in the posted Conditions of Participation, the purpose of this public Forum's program was to provide decision-makers with access to information and a free exchange of views on the issues presented in the program's Forum Summary. Each participant was expected to make independent use of information obtained through the Forum, subject to the privacy rights of other participants. It is a Forum rule that participants will not be identified or quoted without their explicit permission.

This Forum program was initiated in 2012 in collaboration with The Conference Board and with Thomson Reuters support of communication technologies to address issues and objectives defined by participants in the 2010 "E-Meetings" program relevant to broad public interests in marketplace practices. The website is being maintained to provide continuing reports of the issues addressed in the program, as summarized in the January 5, 2015 Forum Report of Conclusions.

Inquiries about this Forum program and requests to be included in its distribution list may be addressed to access@shareholderforum.com.

The information provided to Forum participants is intended for their private reference, and permission has not been granted for the republishing of any copyrighted material. The material presented on this web site is the responsibility of Gary Lutin, as chairman of the Shareholder Forum.

Shareholder Forum™ is a trademark owned by The Shareholder Forum, Inc., for the programs conducted since 1999 to support investor access to decision-making information. It should be noted that we have no responsibility for the services that Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., introduced for review in the Forum's 2010 "E-Meetings" program and has since been offering with the “Shareholder Forum” name, and we have asked Broadridge to use a different name that does not suggest our support or endorsement.