Activist investor Carl Icahn bows to Hindenburg pressure

Carl Icahn made a multibillion-dollar fortune as an activist investor, bullying companies into changing their businesses. Another activist has now forced him to do the same.

- Ben Foldy

Icahn Enterprises, which says it offers small investors a chance to "invest alongside the iconic Icahn," said Friday it was cutting its dividend in half to $1 a share, the first reduction since 2011. Icahn also published a letter saying that his company would focus again on corporate activism, where it made big profits. He said it would wind down bets that the stock market would collapse, which have inflicted heavy losses.

"Our returns have been overwhelmed by our overly bearish view of the market," Icahn said.

"Going forward, we intend to stick to our knitting and focus on our activist strategy."

The changes come in the aftermath of a campaign launched against the company by activist short seller Hindenburg Research. In May, Hindenburg alleged Icahn Enterprises was overvalued, that its dividend was unsustainable and that Icahn himself had borrowed heavily against his shares in the company, leaving it vulnerable to a selloff.

Icahn said Hindenburg's report was self-serving and misleading. But he stayed unusually quiet as his company's shares tumbled. Icahn owns most of the company's shares, while small investors make up the remainder. The selloff raised the risk that Icahn would suffer a margin call, forcing more selling. There were no obvious buyers to snap up the shares.