Investor Carl Icahn has been buying up debt of LightSquared Inc., the wireless network backed by billionaire fund manager Philip Falcone, according to people familiar with the matter. The stake could enable him to take control of the company should it restructure or file for bankruptcy, one of the people said. Mr. Icahn snapped up LightSquared loans, which are traded on the market like securities, after prices of the debt nosedived last year. Two other distressed-debt investors, David Tepper and Andrew Beal, also bought some of the loans. [WSJ]
Carl Icahn
Sadly he used the cover of a miserable market and a Friday afternoon to bury this gem of passive aggressiveness:
The Reporting Persons have decided to withdraw their slate of directors after concluding that a considerable base of shareholders would not support their stated campaign at this time. While the Reporting Persons continue to believe that the best way to ultimately maximize shareholder value is through a sale of the Issuer to a strategic buyer, the Reporting Persons respect and understand that several large shareholders may believe that now is not the best time to run that process, given the deteriorating conditions of the financial markets and the Issuer’s view that even the Reporting Persons $80 per share offer substantially undervalues the Issuer.
What’s in it for you? Well…if you elect his co-workers, family and friends to run Clorox, he’ll put the company up for auction and get you at least $78 a share. Or, if he can’t, he’ll just give you the $78 himself. But only half of that will be in real money. The rest will be in Clorox bonds that, a month ago, Jefferies was “highly confident” that they could sell to the market on reasonable terms. Now maybe not so much:
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Sure he’s already achieved “a great outcome for ALL shareholders of Motorola Mobility,” and he’s pretty busy working the speed bag in preparation for his proxy fight with Forest Labs scheduled for later this week, but Carl took the time to stop by Bloomberg TV today and let Google know that if they ever want to talk to someone about breaking up a mobile technology company he’s got a little expertise in that area: Continue reading »
When Carl Icahn lobbed in his bid for Clorox last week, a lot of people had their doubts about his seriousness. They pointed out that he doesn’t really complete hostile deals all that much. They questioned his plans to raise $7.8 billion in debt, despite a highly confident letter from Jefferies. They suggested that his bid was just a weak attempt to drum up a third-party buyer.
These doubters seriously underestimate Carl’s almost pathological love for cleaning products of all kinds, and he had some strong, loud words for them in his letter today raising his bid to $80 a share:
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Fortune: What is your favorite company? Continue reading »
On tap: Ackman, Joel Greenblatt, David Einhorn, Eike Batista, Carl Icahn
4:55 Speaker 11, Bill Ackman, Pershing Square
4:56 “A lot of people think of Pershing Square as an activist fund- well this is going to be a passive idea”
4:57 Bill is recommending… Continue reading »
This year’s conference will not include David Tepper’s balls but the show must go on. Scheduled speakers, in order of appearance: Erez Kalir, Dinakar Singh, Jeff Aronson, Robert Howard, Phil Falcone, Jim Chanos, winner of the inaugural Ira Sohn investment contest, Steve Feinberg, Peter May, Steve Esiman, Jeff Gundlach, Marc Faber, Bill Ackman, Joel Greenblatt, Mark Hart III, David Einhorn, Eike Batista, Carl Icahn.
12:20 Speaker 1: Erez Kalir, founder and CEO of Sabretooth Capital, presenting: “Economic Death As A Special Situation”
12:21 The last time he spoke in front of this many people “was at my bar mitzvah”
12:22 You don’t have to make money the Warren Buffett way.
12:25 Holding MBIA stock is “favorably asymmetric” Continue reading »
About six weeks back, investor Carl Icahn announced he’d be closing the hedge fund he opened in 2004. The move- and the fact that Icahn is 75 years old- got the Times thinking. Thinking things like 1) Icahn’s getting up there in years and might die soon (as evidenced by the headline “The Raider In The Winter” and 2) That he’d “lost so much money during the financial crisis that he is still a bit shaken by the experience.” Icahn addressed the second point, which he says is false, in a letter to the editor over the weekend. The short version? The Grey Lady can suck it. The slightly longer version: Continue reading »
Carl Icahn Likens Judge Saying He Owes Bill Ackman $8 Million To Being Wrongfully Accused Of Murder, Sent To Death Row
By Bess Levin
Five weeks ago, Carl Icahn announced he’d be closing the hedge fund he opened in 2004. Was this a sign retirement was next to come, some wondered? Hell no, Icahn recently told a reporter who checked in with the activist investor. “What else would I do? Play shuffleboard somewhere?” Mr. Icahn said from his vacation home in Florida. Carl’s got no time for anything so patently ridiculous, and is in fact busier than ever. What’s he been up to? Continue reading »
As the Chairman of Citigroup, a position he’s held since February 2009, Dick Parsons sticks out a bit by comparison. Whereas Citi has at times been the world’s largest bloated, lumbering, diversified cathouse where, for a good while, nothing could go right, a highly flammable entity prone to one chaotic moment of shit hitting the fan after the next, that few wanted to get within 100 feet of Parsons is calm. Cool. “Flat-out smooth,” as BusinessWeek describes him (which is why he was hired to be the one to go make nice with Washington, according to Vikram Pandit). The magazine recently accompanied Dick to a jazz club where they got to know him a little better, on a personal level. Here’s what we’ve learned about DP:
* He thinks the city smoking ban sucks: “Michael E. Novogratz, a director of Fortress Investment Group, a New York hedge fund, gives Parsons a hug and presents him with a Montecristo cigar. Parsons looks pleased. “Oh man,” he says, “I wish we could light these up in here.”
* If you’ve lost ass-ton of money, he’s the guy you turn to for a pick-me-up: Novogratz and Parsons exchange condolences about the market, which is zig-zagging with the turmoil in the Middle East. “I lost more money this week than I did in any week in 2008,” Novogratz laments. Parsons tells him not to be so hard on himself. “Nobody knows what’s going on,” he says.
* Charm like this doesn’t need an undergraduate degree: He went to the University of Hawaii, where he partied more than he studied. After four years, he still needed six credits to get his diploma, but he discovered that if he aced his pre-law exams he could get into law school in New York state without a college degree. He did well on the test and was accepted to Albany Law School, where he graduated at the top of his class. Continue reading »
