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By Scott Malone
January 27, 2012 1:14 AM EST
Oshkosh Corp
Icahn holds stakes of roughly 10 percent in both the Oshkosh, Wisconsin-based company and rival Navistar International Corp
Oshkosh, meanwhile, has said its executives have met Icahn multiple times and he has not proposed "substantive ideas" that would benefit all shareholders.
The maker of fire trucks, cement mixers and military vehicles contends it had no contact with Icahn prior to his June disclosure in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that he had a 9.5 percent stake in Oshkosh.
About 300 people, mostly Oshkosh retirees, typically attend the company's annual meetings, according to Oshkosh officials. This year's meeting gets underway at 8 a.m. Central time (1400 GMT) at an aviation museum in Oshkosh.
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Oshkosh shares have fallen about 32 percent over the past year, while the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index <.SPX> is up 3 percent. Navistar has declined 30 percent.
Icahn has nominated a slate of six directors to Oshkosh's 13-member board. They include three staffers of his Icahn Enterprises investment firm, Samuel Merksamer, Vincent Intrieri and Daniel Ninivaggi; chief executive Jose Maria Alapont of Icahn-backed Federal-Mogul Corp
One of three major proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services, this month backed three of those nominees, Alapont, Krongard and Merksamer. Two others, Glass Lewis & Co and Egan-Jones Proxy Service backed the existing Oshkosh board.
"Mr. Icahn has not demonstrated that he has a plan or a team that can lead your company and deliver value to all Oshkosh shareholders," Oshkosh CEO Charles Szews and Chairman Richard Donnelly wrote in a letter to shareholders earlier this month.
Icahn has criticized the company's management as being thin, heavier on sales and marketing executives than people with manufacturing experience, and notes Oshkosh shares lost 39 percent of their value in 2011, while Icahn's funds gained 15 percent.
Annual shareholder meetings are typically sleepy affairs, but can turn raucous when investors launch concerted campaigns against management.
In 2009, the management of Massachusetts biotechnology company Biogen Idec Inc
Icahn has sold most of his holdings in Biogen after a spectacular run-up in company's stock after it hired a new CEO, restructured and had positive data from a clinical trial of an experimental multiple sclerosis drug.
Icahn has found a warmer welcome for his approach to Oshkosh rival Navistar.
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