Carl Icahn (Trades, Portfolio) on June 29 received shares of Gannett Co. Inc. (GCI, Financial) as part of the company’s split that he supported, according to Real Time Picks data.
Icahn effectively has 7,483,683 shares of the new Gannett after the June 29 split, roughly a 6.51% stake. Shareholders received two shares of the new Gannett for every share they held of Gannett, which changed its name to Tegna Inc. (TGNA, Financial).
Plans to split the company surfaced in August 2014, around the time that Icahn initially took a position in the company and became involved in the separation. Icahn Associates said in a related filing that they intended “to have discussions with representatives of the issuer’s management and board of directors relating to the planned separation, corporate governance, capitalization and capital allocation.”
The new Gannett, which owns USA Today, will focus on publishing, and TEGNA retained broadcasting and digital assets.
Gannett and Tegna shares lost 15% since they began trading independently. Gannett traded around $14.50, and Tegna traded around $31.41 on Friday afternoon.
A few days before his spinoff came to fruition, Icahn made some bearish pronouncements about markets:
“I believe the market is extremely overheated – especially high yield bonds. If more respected investors had warned about the market in ’07, we might have avoided the crisis in ’08,” he said on June 24 on Twitter, where he has 232,000 followers.
The positions topping his portfolio at the end of the first quarter were an 18.3% allocation to Apple Inc. (AAPL, Financial), 8.6% to CVR Energy Inc. (CVI, Financial) and 8.1% to eBay Inc. (EBAY, Financial).
He held 21 positions in total at the end of the first quarter, valued at $32.05 billion.
Manning & Napier Advisors Inc. also received a position in Gannett as shareholders of the company before the split, they reported in their second quarter filings. They own 2,753,435 shares, a 2.43% stake, and 5,507,298 shares of Tegna Inc., also a 2.43% stake.
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