People

What kind of investor is Carl Icahn?

Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr

Carl Celian Icahn was born on February 16, 1936, and is an American financier. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, a public company and diversified conglomerate holding company based in Sunny Isles Beach.

Icahn takes large stakes in companies that he believes will appreciate via changes to corporate policy and he then pressures management to make changes that he believes will benefit shareholders. He was one of the first activist shareholders and is credited with making that investment strategy mainstream for hedge funds.

In the 1980s, Icahn developed a reputation as a “corporate raider” after profiting from the hostile takeover and asset stripping of Trans World Airlines.

Icahn is on the Forbes 400 and has a net worth of approximately $17 billion to $24 billion.

Since 2011, Icahn no longer manages money for outside clients, although investors can invest in Icahn Enterprises.

Icahn was born in Brooklyn to an Ashkenazi Jewish family. He was raised in the Far Rockaway, Queens neighborhood of New York City, where he attended Far Rockaway High School.

His father, Michael Icahn, a “sworn atheist”, was a cantor, and later a substitute teacher. His mother, Bella (formerly Schnall) also worked as a schoolteacher.

Icahn graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in philosophy in 1957 after completing a senior thesis titled “The Problem of Formulating an Adequate Explication of the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning.” He then entered the New York University School of Medicine, but he dropped out after two years to join the military reserve force.

What kind of investor is Carl Icahn?

Icahn said, “My investment philosophy, generally, with exceptions, is to buy something when no one wants it.” More specifically, as a contrarian investor, he identifies stocks with low price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios or with book values that exceed the current market valuation.

Source: Ghanafuo.com