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New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Activist investor Carl Icahn purchased another 6.8 million shares of Yahoo stock last week at a price tag of about $67 million, further boosting his already vast stake in the company to almost 5.5 percent.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that stake is equal to 75.6 million shares in the Internet giant, or about $870 million.
The Corporate Raider has been outspoken about his beliefs that Yahoo should strike a deal with Microsoft Corp. in hopes of better competing with Google. Although no merger talks are currently in the works, some believe Icahn is still pushing for the deal.
Icahn was also vocal about his desire to dump Jerry Yang, saying that the former Yahoo CEO did everything he could to discourage a deal with Microsoft. Yahoo is currently seeking a replacement for Yang after he stepped down on November 17. Yang had previously rejected a $31-a-share offer by Microsoft earlier this year, prompted Icahn and other board members to question his leadership.
After news circulated on Friday that Icahn had increased his stake in the struggling company, Yahoo shares rallied almost 9%, up to $11.51 in the shortened trading session. Icahn may be trying to reverse the massive losses he incurred this year, after shares of Yahoo plummeted almost 60 percent.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
Barron – In the 1980s, Carl Icahn loomed large as a corporate raider, in the mold of the Gordon Gekko character in the movie Wall Street. Icahn made a lot of money but was vilified for what some considered a slash-and-burn approach to taking over companies.
Twenty years later, Icahn has morphed into a shareholder activist and rails against what he considers to be incompetence among senior executives and on boards. "They call me raider. They call me an activist," says Icahn, who, at 72, shows no sign of slowing down. "I don’t know what those labels mean. All I know is that something should be done to improve corporate governance and management. If we don’t, managements will remain unaccountable and our economy will suffer."
eBrandz – In a move expected to fuel speculation over Yahoo Inc.’s search for a new chief executive — Corporate raider and billionaire investor Carl Icahn augmented his stake in Yahoo, has bought up close to 7 million additional shares of the Internet Company over three days this week, paying around $67 million, according to regulatory filings.
Icahn, a billionaire hedge-fund manager who now holds a seat on Yahoo’s board, acquired 6.77 million additional shares of Yahoo stock during November 24-26 for 67 million dollars, now owns 75.6 million of the company’s shares, or a 5.4 percent stake valued at around $870 million based on Yahoo’s closing share price on Friday, according to the documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and dated Wednesday.
The company’s stock moved up 93 cents, or nearly 9%, to $11.51 in the shortened trading session after Icahn, a Yahoo board member who has been pushing a strategy shift or a sale to Microsoft Corp., said he had bought about 6.8 million shares.
NewsDay – Here’s something that might provide a bit of solace amid the plunging values in your retirement accounts: Warren Buffett is losing lots of money, too. So are Kirk Kerkorian, Carl Icahn and Sumner Redstone.
They are still plenty rich, but their losses — some on paper and others actually realized — illustrate how few have been spared in today’s punishing market when even big-name investors, corporate executives and hedge-fund titans are all watching their wealth evaporate.
The portfolio damage for some of these high-flyers has soared to billions of dollars in recent months. And they can’t just blame the market’s downdraft — some did themselves in with badly timed stock purchases or margin calls on shares bought with loans.
"It’s always hard to beat the market no matter who you are," said Robert Hansen, senior associate dean at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. "But when the ocean waters get that rough, it is hard for any boat to avoid getting swamped."
Bloomberg – Carl Icahn, the investor angling to sell a 13 percent stake in Imclone Systems Inc. for more than $800 million, is piling up bets in the biotechnology industry.
Icahn and hedge funds he manages have accumulated stakes in at least 10 biotechnology companies that make up a fifth of the investors’ total publicly reported holdings, excluding shares of Icahn Enterprises LP. He and the funds have about $1.3 billion invested in biotech, four times as much as two years ago, and increased those bets by $320 million in the last two months alone, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The 72-year-old has made his personal fortune, estimated at $14.5 billion by Forbes magazine, by investing in companies and then pressuring management into selling their companies at higher share prices. The strategy worked for airlines, refiners and casinos. Icahn is now targeting biotech companies, whose products make them appealing to pharmaceutical giants, such as Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and AstraZeneca Plc, that will be losing patent protection over the next four years on medicines with $84 billion in annual sales.
New York Post – Corporate raider turned activist investor Carl Icahn is having a tough year.
The Far Rockaway, Queens native’s hedge funds are suffering their first losses since the 72-year-old opened them in 2004. The losing streak, which started midway through 2007, is expected to continue when Icahn Enterprises, the publicly-traded holding company for his hedge funds and other investments, reports earnings on Tuesday.
Shares of Icahn Enterprises, which include the hedge funds and other businesses, have plummeted nearly 50 percent this year as investors have backed away from their initial enthusiasm for the activist investor. His funds were up about 2 percent last month, but are down roughly 6 percent for the year, according to investors.
Guardian Unlimited- The struggling internet company Yahoo has struck a pact with its billionaire critic Carl Icahn by giving the hedge fund activist a minority presence on its board to avoid a potentially tempestuous showdown at a shareholder meeting next month.
Facing crumbling support among Yahoo investors, Icahn yesterday abandoned his efforts to overthrow the leadership of the embattled Silicon Valley company and force its sale to Microsoft.
Instead, the 72-year-old Icahn & Co hedge fund manager is settling for an offer of three seats on Yahoo’s board. One director will stand down and the board will expand from nine to 11 members. Wall Street analysts greeted it as a qualified victory for Yahoo’s founder, Jerry Yang, who has pressed hard to maintain its independence and who waged an energetic campaign to discredit Icahn.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Hedge Funder Eric Jackson of Ironfire Capital will call on Yahoo Inc. to accept a board of directors mixed with members both proposed by the company and from a dissident slate backed by billionaire investor Carl Icahn.
Jackson, who heads the grassroots group Yahoo Plan B, wants five members to come from Yahoo and four to be elected from Icahn’s proposed slate of nine.
"It’s become clear over the last two weeks that many shareholders are reluctant to support the entire list of Icahn nominees," Jackson said in a statement expected to be issued today.
Icahn had launched his proxy battle two months ago when he rationalized that Yahoo head Jerry Yang was not looking out for the shareholders when he rejected Microsoft’s $33 a share bid on the company.
It was then that Icahn proposed his slate of board directors which included himself, Frank Biondi, Robert Shaye and Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Icahn proceeded to garner the support of many prominent hedge funds and wealthy shareholders, though some have been reluctant to put all their faith in the corporate raider.
Jackson is hoping the two parties can reach an agreement before the showdown happens at Yahoo’s annual shareholder meeting on August 1st.
The Yahoo Plan B group is a Web-based activist group comprised of 150 small Yahoo shareholders who hold about 3.2 million Yahoo shares. Members of the group vote individually rather than as a group.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
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New York (HedgeCo.Net) – After months of on-again off-again talks between Yahoo and Microsoft, the possibility of a merger looks to be back on.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft said they may be interested in restarting talks if the internet giant’s board was replaced, a move that billionaire tycoon Carl Icahn has been striving to achieve.
"If Microsoft and Mr. Ballmer really want to purchase Yahoo, we again invite them to make a proposal immediately," Yahoo said in a recent statement.
Icahn had launched a proxy battle to replace Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and other members of the Yahoo board after they originally rejected Microsoft’s first offer for $47.5 billion. Icahn blamed it on Yang’s personal disdain for Microsoft and said they were not acting in the shareholders best interest. Backed by a few prominent hedge funds who also acquired massive shares in Yahoo, it looked as if Icahn was going to score a victory only to have talks cool shortly thereafter.
While some shareholders are reluctant at how Icahn would manage the company, others are urging him to push for fewer seats on the board. Yahoo’s annual shareholder meeting will be held on August 1st.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds! Be sure to check out our sister sites. For more information, visit www.hedgeconetworks.com
Boston Globe- Carl Icahn has hit the roughest patch of his hedge fund career.
His $7.9 billion in hedge funds fell 7 percent between October and April, the biggest peak-to-trough loss since the funds opened in November 2004, according to investors. That compares with an average annual return on his investments of 53 percent from 1996 to mid-2004.
Icahn has lost money on cellular-phone maker Motorola Inc., his biggest investment. The 72-year-old billionaire also failed to persuade executives at Yahoo Inc. and Biogen Idec Inc. to take his advice for boosting their stock.
While falling equity markets and the slowing economy are beyond Icahn’s command, the setbacks at Yahoo and Biogen Idec don’t bode well for his future as an activist shareholder, said Brett Barth, a partner at New York-based BBR Partners, which has invested $1 billion in hedge funds.
Bloomberg- Carl Icahn has hit the roughest patch of his hedge-fund career.
His $7.9 billion in hedge funds fell 7 percent between October and April, the biggest peak-to-trough loss since the funds opened in November 2004, according to investors. That compares with an average annual return on his investments of 53 percent from 1996 to mid-2004.
Icahn has lost money on cellular-phone maker Motorola Inc., his biggest investment. The 72-year-old billionaire also failed to persuade executives at Yahoo! Inc. and Biogen Idec Inc. to take his advice for boosting their stock prices.
NPR News- The people who run hedge funds can be famously secretive about their work. Not David Einhorn.
Einhorn founded Greenlight Capital, which manages about $6 billion in assets. He recently waged a very public battle against Lehman Brothers, claiming it was losing more money than it admitted. He turned out to be right.
Now he’s written a book, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, about his six-year battle against another company, Allied Capital. Einhorn says the experience shows how the media and financial regulators can sometimes fail investors.
Each May, hundreds of Wall Streeters show up at the Ira Sohn Investment Research Conference in New York’s Lincoln Center. They pay up to $3,200 each for the chance to hear advice from big investors like Carl Icahn and Wilbur Ross.
