2 Stocks Billionaire Carl Icahn Bought in Q3 (and 3 He Dumped)

Billionaire Carl Icahn is the founder and manager of Icahn Capital, one of the most feared activist hedge funds in the world. The 82-year-old investor, who has a personal fortune estimated by Forbes at $17 billion, is also the chairman and majority owner of Icahn Enterprises L.P. (NASDAQ:IEP), an investment vehicle which owns several companies, including The Pep Boys, Trump Entertainment Resorts, and Federal-Mogul.

Icahn Capital maintains a fairly concentrated portfolio and there isn’t a lot of quarterly turnover in its positions, which was evident during Q3 based on the fund’s latest 13F filing released this month. Of Icahn’s 21 13F holdings on June 30, changes were made to just 7 of those positions during Q3, two of which are essentially the same stock (DVMT and VMW). Icahn closed just one position and did not initiate any new positions during the third-quarter. The fund’s 13F portfolio was valued at $25.22 billion at the end of September.

Carl Icahn as viking

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Below, we’ll look at five of Icahn’s small collection of moves during Q3, which included closing out one holding.

Stocks Bought in Q3

Energen Corporation (NYSE:EGN)

Shares Bought During Q3: 2.47 million

Value of Holding (as of September 30): $661 million

Q4 Return (through November 23): -21.70%

Forward P/E Ratio: 13.17

Forward Dividend Yield: N/A

Icahn continued to add to his fund’s Energen Corporation (NYSE:EGN) position in Q3 after opening a 5.2 million-share position in Q2, 2 million of which were bought off of Icahn protege Keith Meister of Corvex Capital. With 3 prominent activists ganging up on the company, the sale that Meister had been pushing for over the last year came to fruition in August, when Energen agreed to be purchased by Diamondback Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:FANG) for $9.2 billion.

Newell Brands Inc. (NYSE:NWL)

Shares Bought During Q3: 5.40 million

Value of Holding (as of September 30): $786 million

Q4 Return (through November 23): +7.09%

Forward P/E Ratio: 9.39

Forward Dividend Yield: 4.62%

Newell Brands Inc. (NYSE:NWL) is another company that Icahn has teamed up with another activist on, in this case Jeffrey Smith of Starboard Value. Icahn gave up two Newell board seats in April to make way for Starboard’s nominees in order to avoid a costly proxy contest. Starboard had initially sought to wipe out the company’s entire board, which had included four seats granted to Icahn nominees in March.

Stocks Sold in Q3

Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI)

Shares Sold During Q3: 503,380

Value of Holding (as of September 30): $0

Q4 Return (through November 23): +1.40%

Forward P/E Ratio: 13.81

Forward Dividend Yield: 0.02%

Icahn completely sold out of Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI) in Q3 just a quarter after first building the position and it looks like he made a nice little profit off the short-lived holding, as the stock gained 23% during Q3.

VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW)

Shares Sold During Q3: 1.85 million

Value of Holding (as of September 30): $65.77 million

Q4 Return (through November 23): -1.97%

Forward P/E Ratio: 23.72

Forward Dividend Yield: N/A

Icahn boosted his stake in Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DVMT), which tracks Dell’s VMware stake, by 269% in Q3 as he engaged in a proxy contest against Dell. Likely due to that move and because he didn’t want to become overexposed to VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW), Icahn countered by selling off 81% of his fund’s position in the actual stock. Icahn recently dropped his proxy fight with Dell after a better deal was offered which swayed other shareholders to Dell’s side, though Icahn wasn’t satisfied with the deal and believed they could’ve held out for a better offer.

Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSE:LNG)

Shares Sold During Q3: 300,000

Value of Holding (as of September 30): $1.62 billion

Q4 Return (through November 23): -15.54%

Forward P/E Ratio: 23.35

Forward Dividend Yield: N/A

Icahn sold off a small 2% chunk of his Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSE:LNG) stake in Q3, which followed a much larger 27% cut in Q2. Icahn pushed former Cheniere CEO Charif Souki out the door in 2016 and voiced his confidence in the current management team after his large Q2 sale.

Disclosure: None