Carl Icahn

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Carl Celian Icahn (born February 16, 1936) is an American billionaire financier.

Icahn, raised in Queens, New York City, earned a reputation as a corporate raider after his hostile takeover of TWA in 1985. He was educated at Princeton University (A.B., Philosophy, 1957) and New York University School of Medicine, where he dropped out before graduation. Carl Icahn, like many others in the 1980s, made his billionaire fortune in large part because of financier Michael Milken's junk bonds. After the junk bond and overall market bust in the early 1990s, Carl Icahn played a lower profile role in the business world, preferring to be less public in his dealings.

Icahn is a director of Blockbuster Inc, and the chairman of Imclone, American Real Estate Partners LP, XO Communications Inc, WestPoint Home Inc. and American Railcar. Also he is a beneficial owner of Adventrx Pharmaceuticals Inc, Hollywood Entertainment, National Energy Group Inc, Vector Group Ltd and has significant holdings in Time Warner Inc. He has casino interests in Las Vegas, Nevada, including the Stratosphere, Arizona Charlie's Boulder and Arizona Charlie's Decatur, which are operated through American Entertainment Properties, a subsidiary of Icahn's major company American Real Estate Partners. Icahn has also tried to take over Marvel Comics.

In 2004, Icahn purchased a large bloc of stock in a pharmaceutical concern, Mylan Laboratories, after Mylan had announced a deal to acquire another company in that market, King Phamaceuticals, of Bristol, Tennessee. Icahn threatened a proxy fight over the acquisition, saying that the contract required Mylan to over-pay. He also contended that Mylan's chief executive, Robert J. Coury was significantly overcompensated and that Mylan's corporate governance was otherwise badly flawed.

In early 2005, Mylan gave up its efforts to acquire King, but management said this was a result of its ongoing monitoring of relevant facts, not due to pressure from Mr. Icahn.

In 2006 Icahn sold his stake in KT&G (Korea Tobacco & Ginseng) for a significant quick one year profit.

Icahn Stadium on Randalls Island in New York City is named after him, as is the Icahn Science Center and Icahn Scholar Program at Choate Rosemary Hall, a top tier New England prep school. This organization pays for tuition, room and board, books, and supplies for 10 students every year for four years (freshman-senior), an expense that adds up to about 160,000 dollars per student.

Icahn made a substantial donation to his alma mater Princeton University to fund a genomics laboratory which bears his name.

At the moment Icahn is also a major shareholder of Time Warner owning about 3.3% of the company valued at billions of dollars. He has been actively attempting to influence the direction of Time Warner, often in conflict with its Chief Executive, Richard Parsons. Although Time Warner recently sold 5% of its AOL division, Icahn has been pressing for additional action to increase shareholder value. On February 7, 2006, a group led by Icahn and Lazard Frères CEO Bruce Wasserstein unveiled a 343-page proposal calling for the breakup of Time Warner into four companies and stock buybacks totaling approximately $20 billion. On February 17, 2006, the Icahn-led group agreed with Time Warner to not contest the re-election of TW's slate of board members at the 2006 shareholders meeting. In exchange for the Icahn group's cooperation, Time Warner will buy back up $20 billion of stock, nominate more independent members to the board of directors, cut $1 billion of costs by 2007, and continue discussions with the Icahn group over their proposal, particularly on the future of Time Warner Cable.

In August 2006, he bought stock in the video game publisher Take Two Interactive.

[edit] Thoroughbred horse racing

In 1985 Carl Icahn established Foxfield Thoroughbreds, a horse breeding operation. At that years' Newstead Farm Trust sale run by Fasig-Tipton, he paid $4 million for Larida, a 6-year-old mare and a record $7 million for the 4-year-old bay mare Miss Oceana who was in foal to champion sire, Northern Dancer.

Icahn's Meadow Star won the 1990 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and was voted the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Two-Year-Old Filly. In 1992, Foxfield ended its racing operation and became a commercial breeder. Having bred more than 140 stakes horses, in 2004 Icahn shut down Foxfield, selling all his mares and weanlings without reserve at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale.