Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Carl Icahn

Carl Icahn Ups Stake In WebMD

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 03:01:38 +0000

Carl Icahn has upped his stake in WebMD. He now owns 13.12% in WebMD, which is up from 11.64%. He paid $203.2 million for the additional shares. Icahn increased his stake after WebMD decided in January not to sell itself off anymore.

On Tuesday, WebMD announced that they would buyback shares as part of a $150 million worth of stock in a Dutch tender offer. The program collected 18 million shares (10% of outstanding shares) for $26 each.

This price is higher than where WebMD has trade since late February. WebMD’s offer was not what Icahn pictured. He proposed a buyback of up to $1 billion worth of shares at a high price point of $30.

[NYT]

Motorola Buys $1.17 Billion Of Stock Back From Carl Icahn

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:00:46 +0000

Motorola Solutions Inc. split in two about a year ago after Carl Icahn pressured the company. Motorola bought $1.17 billion of its stock from Icahn and said that his representative on the board is stepping down. The repurchase represents about 7% of shares outstanding. It is part of a $3 billion buyback program said Motorola Solutions. Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc. director Vincent J. Intrieri has resigned from the board.

The other spun-off business Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. was bought by Google Inc. for $12.5 billion. Icahn pushed Motorola to spin off their mobile phone unit after four years of suggesting change. Motorola Solutions bought 23.7 million of its common stock at $49.15 per share from Icahn and his affiliates. As of January 1st, Icahn Associates Corp. owned 38.3 million shares of Motorola Solutions. Icahn has 14.6 million shares left and Icahn’s stake was cut to 4.6%.

[BusinessWeek]

Google-Motorola Deal: Sanjay Jha Making $90 Million and Carl Icahn Making $600 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:00:48 +0000

[Left: Sanjay Jha, Right: Carl Icahn]

Through the Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI), two people that will make a substantial amount from the deal includes Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha and investor Carl Icahn. Sanjay Jha will make $90 million through the acquisition according to Footnoted’s Michelle Leder that looked through the company’s proxy statement.

Billionaire Carl Icahn put in quite a bit of effort to get Motorola Mobility Holdings to review their options for their patents. As a result, he will be getting a $600 million pay-out through the Google acquisition. Icahn and his affiliates own 33.5 million (11.4% in company stake) shares in Motorola. This stake is now valued at about $1.34 billion under the Google’s acquisition deal.

Icahn invested about $3.05 billion in Motorola’s common stock since 2008. He successfully lobbied the company to spin off their mobile phone business. Now Icahn’s holdings in Motorola Mobility and Motorola Systems Inc. may be valued at about $2.9 billion.

“Obviously, in 2008, we purchased the stock at too high of a price,” stated Icahn in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart with Carol Massar and Matt Miller.” He later added that his firm paid as little as $3 per share for Motorola stock. “We averaged it down and were pleased with the results.”

Blockbuster Files Bankruptcy, Plans To Restructure

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:26:22 +0000

Blockbuster has filed for bankruptcy, but they’re not ready to throw in the towel yet. A group of bondholders and hedge funds that is being led by Carl Icahn has signed off on a restructuring deal that will give them controlling stake in the company that took a huge market share hit from Netflix.

Blockbuster plans to offer more digital content, especially on mobile devices. Blockbuster has about 3,000 U.S. stores still open and their businesses will continue to operate during the bankruptcy process, but I would not be surprised if hundreds of stores will be shut down soon.

Blockbuster was founded in 1985 as the VCR was gaining popularity. Blockbuster employs 25,000 people and filed for Chapter 11 in a bankruptcy court in Manhattan.

Blockbuster will cut their debt to about $100 million from about $1 billion. Icahn and the hedge funds hold 80% of Blockbuster’s senior notes and agreed to support the new plan. Icahn and the hedge funds will be providing $125 million of debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing for Blockbuster to continue operating during the bankruptcy process.

Carl Icahn Buys 8.5% Stake In Lawson Software

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:36:05 +0000

Carl C. Icahn has acquired an 8.5% stake in Lawson Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:LWSN). Icahn now plans to discuss the business operations with Lawson’s management. Icahn is also currently in a battle for taking over Lions Gate Entertainment. Icahn said he bought stake in the company because he felt that the shares were undervalued. [NY Times]

Carl Icahn Ups Ownership In Motorola From 5.15% to 8.75%

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:34:10 +0000

Carl C. Icahn has increased his ownership in Motorola from 5.15% to 8.75%. He now has 203.33 million shares in the mobile company. At the end of 2009, Icahn owned 119.79 million shares, which was the equivalent of 5.15% ownership. Motorola plans to split into two separate units next year to revamp the company. [NYT]

Carl Icahn Unloads Tons of Blockbuster Stock

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:36:00 +0000

Carl Ichan has sold off most of his stock in Blockbuster Inc. this week. Icahn sold off almost all of his Class A common stock with a price of about $0.26 each. The sales of the Class A stock was worth about $3.4 million. He bought it the stock for over $100 million years ago.

Icahn also sold off his holdings of the Class B stock, cashing out about $241,000. He suffered a 98% loss on that investment. Icahn owns about $38 million of Blockbuster in the form of convertible preferred shares. This could be converted into 7.4 million class A shares.

Today, Blockbuster has to make a $43 million payment on senior secured notes. The company may have to file for bankruptcy soon. [WSJ]

Carl Icahn Leaving Yahoo!’s Board of Directors, But Praises Bartz On The Way Out

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:15:07 +0000

Carl Icahn joined the Board of Directors at Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) in July 2008. This was shortly after Icahn highly criticized the Yahoo! Board of Directors for their negligence in making an acquisition agreement with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). Icahn bought and sold many Yahoo! shares ever since.

The reason why Icahn is leaving the Yahoo! Board of Directors is because he wanted to spend more time on other investments he made. “I don’t believe that it is necessary at this time to have an activist on the board of Yahoo and currently my attention is focused on other matters,” stated Icahn. Carol Bartz is “doing a great job” added Icahn.

Yahoo! and Microsoft recently struck a deal too. Microsoft Corporation’s Bing.com search engine will power Yahoo!’s various online properties including the homepage Yahoo.com. The deal is still under the regulatory approval process. Icahn owns 4.5% in Yahoo! financially based on stock.

Carl Icahn Sells 12.7 Million Yahoo! Shares

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:01:03 +0000

Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) board member Carl Icahn has unloaded 12.7 million Yahoo! shares. Now his ownership in Yahoo! went from 5.4% to 4.5%. Icahn said he was taking advantage of a window period where directors and officers can sell shares.

The sale of the shares are not intended to reflect upon the long-term views Icahn has of the company. He said he was optimistic about the company’s prospects according to a filing. Icahn continues to support the Microsoft and Yahoo! deal along with the performance of Carol Bartz.

Supposedly Bartz was angry with Icahn for selling the 12.7 million shares and sent out a company e-mail. In the e-mail, Bartz tells Yahoo! employees to “get out of the sugar low – we have work to do. Stop staring at our navels, stop arguing with each other. Stop debate, debate, debate, and let’s focus on the competition.”

Carl Icahn Gives His 2 Cents On The Microsoft-Yahoo! Deal

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:54:40 +0000

It was about a year ago that Carl Icahn was battling the Yahoo! Board to have several executives removed from the helm. But Yahoo! quickly settled before the annual shareholder meeting and gave Carl Icahn three board seats.

As you may remember, Carl Icahn was highly proactive in pushing Microsoft to work out some sort of deal with Yahoo! if not a full buy out. Icahn helped make it happen because Microsoft and Yahoo! did end up making a deal.

“I think it is an excellent deal, and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and her team did an excellent job under the circumstances,” stated Icahn in an interview with BusinessWeek. “I agree with [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer that the deal benefits Yahoo in that Yahoo gets 88% of the search revenues under the agreement,”

Like Steve Ballmer, Icahn said that he was also surprised by Wall Street’s reaction to the deal. Yahoo! lost about a $2.9 billion market cap and Microsoft gained about the same.

Icahn has a 5% stake in Yahoo! Icahn added that Yahoo! cannot afford to continue competing against Google and Microsoft the way that they were operating. “I believe that the partnership with Microsoft bodes very well for Yahoo’s long-term outlook and future,” added Icahn.