Carl Icahn is an activist investor. He takes minority stakes in public companies and typically pushes for change. He invests with three investment vehicles: the 7 billion hedge fund, Icahn Partners, American Real Estate Partners (AREP), a public traded private equity firm, and ICAHN MANAGEMENT LP, a $2 billion hedge fund. GuruFocus tracks the third portfolio, which covers all the stocks owned by Icahn Partners. Mr. Icahn has a personal wealth of $17 billion.
Investing Philosophy:
Mr. Icahn buys beaten-down assets that nobody else wants, usually out of bankruptcy, then fix them up and sell them when they are back in favor. Regarding to his style, explains Icahn: The consensus thinking is generally wrong. If you go with a trend, the momentum always falls apart on you. So I buy companies that are not glamorous and usually out of favor. It is even better if the whole industry is out of favor.
This article highlights the 2008 Commencement speech by Carl Icahn at Drexel University in 2008. The focus is on management in the United States and it's inability to compete. Icahn also says that boards of directors, for the most part, are just as bad. Unions are also a problem, but it is a minor problem. Carl Icahn is an activist investor who in the past has forced Time Warner Inc (ticker: TWX) to reinvent its board of directors to be more independent. He also has control of two seats at Biogen Idec Inc (ticker: BIIB) and is currently waging a proxy fight to get control over 3 more seats. Icahn has recently been a buyer of Genzyme Corporation (ticker: GENZ) and Forest Laboratories Inc (ticker: FRX). More...
Carl Icahn is trying to add 3 more seats to the Biogen Idec Inc (ticker: BIIB) board of directors through a proxy fight. This is in addition to 2 seats that he already controls. He is also trying to lock the number of seats to 13. By doing this, he prevents any potential dilution of the board of directors. At the same time, he will essentially have strong oversight of the company. More...
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who last year forced board changes at biotechnology company Biogen Idec Inc, may take aim at cross-town rival Genzyme Corp(GENZ), according to a source familiar with the situation. More...
I’m setting up a new experiment for 2009/2010 along the same lines as the 2008/2009 Net Net vs Activist Legend thought experiment pitting a little Graham net net against activist investing legend Carl Icahn (Net Net vs Activist Legend: And the winner is…). This time around I’m pitting a small portfolio of near Graham net nets against a small portfolio of ultra-low price-to-book value stocks. The reason? Near Graham net nets are stocks trading at a small premium to Graham’s two-thirds NCAV cut-off, but still trading at a discount to NCAV. While they are also obviously trading at a discount to book, they will in many cases trade at a higher price-to-book value ratio than a portfolio of stocks selected on the basis of price-to-book only. I’m interested to see which will perform better in 2010. The two portfolios are set out below (each contains 30 stocks). I’ll track the equal-weighted returns of each through the year. More...
(GuruFocus, November 1, 2009) Activist Investor Carl Icahn went to Fox Business Network explaining what exactly going on with small and middle business lender CIT Group Inc. In exchange giving the control of the board to the bond holders, the CIT Group Inc. is getting $1b from Carl Icahn as a line of credit during the prepackage bankruptcy period. More...
(GuruFocus, October 19, 2009) Invest Guru Carl Icahn offers $6 billion to the troubled company CIT Group Inc. to replace the company’s tender offer to bond holders. He said the offer can save the company $144 million. The shareholder right advocator thinks the company’s own plan favor the larger bond holders and disadvantages the small guys. More...
Carl Icahn recently gave an interview on CNBC in which he discussed the risks of REITs right now. Bill Ackman also provided his thesis at the Great Investors Best Ideas conference in Dallas, TX. Ackman specifically stated that he is shorting Realty Income Corp (Public, NYSE:O). The Carl Icahn video is viewable at the bottom of this article. More...
(GuruFocus, October 10, 2009) Investment Guru Carl Icahn is known as a nadvocate for shareholder’s right and for his activism investment approach. His long career has rewarded him enormously. In 2008 his net worth was US$14 billion, putting him in an eight way tie for the 46th richest man in the world.In 2009 Forbes recalculated his net worth as $9 billion, but now he is in an eight way tie for the 43rd richest man in the world.
Carl Icahn is not doing much with his portfolio these days. He even stopped writing blogs. But if he does something, it is usually big. This is the update of his Q2 portfolio. More...
At GuruFocus we track the stock holdings of Investment Gurus. As hard as we work to do a good job, we have a few built-in short falls. One of the areas is on private equity investments the Investment Gurus made. There are simply no data reported so we can keep track of. More...
This is the Q1 portfolio update of Carl Icahn's Icahn Capital Management LP. Carl Icahn likes to buy distressed situations. He is also a famed active investor, buy shares in a company and push for change. , he must see a lot of them these days. Carl Icahn owns 20 stocks with a total value of $2.3 billion. These are the details of the buys and sells. More...
Several years ago, I bought a big chunk of 'distressed' debt in a major company and landed on the creditors committee when it filed for Chapter 11. Shortly thereafter, the bankers who were hired by senior management told me that I would have to pay retention bonuses to keep its top managers from leaving. More...
If Carl Icahn buys stocks in a company, he may do something to the companies' management and business operations. CEOs hate him, shareholders like him. These are what he bought and sold during the 4th quarter of 2008. More...
Activist investor Carl Icahn buys Citigroup Inc., Endo Pharmaceuticals Holdings Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Exelixis Inc., TakeTwo Interactive Software Inc., sells Applera Corp. Applied Biosystems Group, WCI Communities Inc. during the 3-months ended 09/30/2008, according to the most recent filings of his investment company, Icahn Capital Management LP. Carl Icahn owns 29 stocks with a total value of $4.5 billion. These are the details of the buys and sells. More...
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