Carl Icahn (Trades, Portfolio) Chairman of Icahn Enterprices (IEP, Financial) has bee on a roll as of late when it comes to his activist campaigns. He coming off his recent successful campaign to get Family Dollar (FDO, Financial) management to put the company up for sale.He recently sold his stake for a $200 million profit. Now he has set his sights onto Hertz (HTZ, Financial) and Gannett Co. Inc (GCI, Financial) where he quickly got involved with Hertz and still hasn't said what he wants or why he has taken a stake in Gannett. It is clear that, at 78, Carl Icahn (Trades, Portfolio) isn't slowing down his campaign against bad corporate governance or his public relations campaign for reforms in corporate governance.
Gannett Co. Inc. (GCI, Financial)
On August 4, 2014, Icahn reported he had staken a 1.2 percent stake or 2.7 million share stake in Gannett Co. He built his stake over the second quarter ending June 30, 2014 and after he disclosed his stake Gannett shares were up 5.7% in after-hour trading. He has recently exercised his Gannett call options and now owns a additional 12.23 million, and acquired those shares at an exercise price of $20.15 per share. Icahn now owns 14.9 million shares or 6.6% of Gannett Co.
Gannett separates its business into two
The company is joining media companies that have separated their broadcasting businesses from their publishing businesses. Gannett has announced plans to separate their business into two companies, and both separate companies will be publicly traded. One will hold the company's digital and broadcasting businesses, and the other will hold its publishing part of the business. The plan is to distrube its publishing assets to its shareholders in a tax-free distrubition. The company will also buy the rest of Cars.com that it already doesn't own and is expected by the end of December this year.
Carl Icahn (Trades, Portfolio) hasn't said or announced what he wants from Gannett or why he acquired his stake in the company.
On Wednesday August 20 Icahn announced that he owned an 8.5% stake or $38 million share in Hertz at a cost of $470.5 million. He also announced that he may seek board seats on Hertz board of directors. Last year Hertz adapted a so-called poison pill to prevent any one shareholder from acquiring more than 10 percent of the company. In March of this year Hertz announced that it would spin off its equipment rental unit. Icahn and Hertz announced an agreement last week were the the company will give Icahn three board seat and two of his board members will be involve in the search for a new chief executive officer. The company also agreed to amend its shareholder rights plan or poison pill. The threshold would trigger the poison pill will be raised to 20% from 10%.
In closing
The company gave Icahn what he wanted to avoid a messy proxy war against the legendary activist investor. His legendary career of activist investing with very nasty proxy wars over past conquest were he won pretty much all of them. Clearly his career and past conquest over businesses played arole in Hertz give Icahn everything he wanted an more. No one knows why Icahn invested in Gannett, but chances are their is an activist motivation for his investment. Carl Icahn (Trades, Portfolio) has been over the last six years on the greatest successful activist campaigns streak in history with no signs of letting up. If you want a share of his spoils from his victories then you can buy a unit of Icahn Enterprise (IEP, Financial). Icahn, the greatest activist investor in history, is still going at it, and he shows no sign of slowing down. Instead he is speeding up his campaign against bad management and bad corporate governance that allows bad management to arise in the first place.
