When push came to shove, the tiger, Carl Icahn, the aging 70-year-old corporate raider, turned into a limping pussy cat.

That’s essentially how many in the Wall Street community interpret last week’s abrupt wrap-up of the billionaire raider’s latest and one of his boldest corporate adventures – a six-month losing effort, via a planned proxy fight, to gain control of the Time Warner board in an effort to break the company into four different entities. That Time Warner would keep the wolf from the door had been widely expected.

One intriguing sidelight is how much damage Mr. Icahn may have done to his own credibility as a stock catalyst since Time Warner’s shares have basically been dead money since August when he first announced the company had become his newest prey. Basically, he disclosed at the time that he and a trio of hedge funds had acquired more than 120 million shares, or 2.6% of the company’s stock (now up to 3.3%), and that he might boost his stake to 10%, a declaration few in Wall Street took seriously and which never came to pass.

Since then, Time Warner shares have traded in a narrow $17 to $18 range, as they have the past three years. This action, or inaction, is obviously a big disappointment to those investors who bought Time Warner following the disclosure of Mr. Icahn’s stake.

Late last week, following private negotiations with the chairman of Time Warner, Richard Parsons, Mr. Icahn threw in the towel by scrapping his demands that he be given two seats on the board. In turn, though, the company did say it would pick two independent directors and consult Mr. Icahn on the selections. It also agreed to cut costs by $1 billion and authorized a stock buyback by as much as $20 billion through December 31, 2007, an action that will swell the company’s debt.

The general market view is that Mr. Icahn not only lost the battle but also the war. For one thing, it’s pointed out, Time Warner’s stock not only failed to rise, but it even went down after Mr. Icahn enlisted the aid of Lazard, a leading investment bank, and its well-regarded chief, Bruce Wasserstein.

“Mr. Icahn didn’t prevail; he lost,” the president of Gramercy Capital Management, Joan Lappin, said. “How could he move a needle with only 3% of the stock? And the answer is he couldn’t because he had no leverage.” Describing Mr. Icahn as strictly a “quick buck artist,” she felt his idea to break up Time Warner into four parts was stupid. “Where is the logic,” she asked, “in having four CEOs, four treasurers, four controllers, etc? There is none.”

Importantly, some observers see Time Warner’s shares subject to a good deal of selling pressure. They figure the hedge funds that joined Mr. Icahn, by no means long-term investors, did so solely in the hopes of making a quick killing on the stock. With that prospect history, it’s only a matter of time, some speculate, before the Icahn group begins to unload most if not all of its Time Warner shares. Likewise, with no new catalyst in sight, it’s widely felt that Time Warner shares will languish at best and more likely drift lower. Giving credence to this view, the stock, in reaction to the truce, fell $0.14 to $17.64, a drop of 0.7%. Clearly, investors were unhappy with the agreement.

After he worked out an agreement with Mr. Parsons, Mr. Icahn, who could not be reached for comment, insisted he had created value for Time Warner shareholders. Some market observers, though, including Ms. Lappin, view this assertion as nonsensical, arguing the company has much to do to resolve its problems. “Just take a gander at its stock performance in recent years,” she says. “The chart looks like an EKG of a dead person, and there’s nothing in sight to suggest a change.”

One money manager relates Mr. Icahn’s losing Time Warner effort to his late 2003 farce with Eastman Kodak, which he felt should be a warning to investors to think twice before buying a stock simply because he has amassed a stake. At the time, with Kodak shares in the low $30s, Mr. Icahn announced he had gotten regulatory approval to buy a large stake in the company. As it turned out, as was the case with Time Warner, Mr. Icahn was more noise than action. He never did acquire that large Kodak stake, and thank goodness he didn’t, as the stock subsequently plunged to $20.77 and currently trades at $26.

Mr. Wasserstein is also thought to be a loser in the Time Warner fight. By joining forces with Mr. Icahn, it’s felt that in effect he signaled that Lazard was a ready and willing ally of the growing number of activist investors, including hedge funds, in their increasing attacks on corporate America.