Carl Icahn
Carl Icahn is a billionaire financier, ranking #18 on the 2007 Forbes 400 list with an estimated net worth of $14.5 billion.
Icahn built a name for himself in the 1980s as a corporate raider. After keeping quite for years, Icahn made a major comeback as a 'activist investor'. An activist investor agitates companies for changes, including buyouts, share buybacks, and dividend increases.
Icahn has successfully pushed for changes at Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) and Temple-Inland (NYSE: TIN), among others. Icahn won board seats at Motorola (NYSE: MOT) after first failing.
In 2007, Icahn's activism successfully pushed biotech company MedImmune into a sales agreement with AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN). Icahn is also involved with biotech company Imclone Systems (Nasdaq: IMCL), where he is Chairman of the Board.
In early, 2008 Icahn activist target BEA Systems (Nasdaq: BEAS) was sold to Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL). Icahn held a 13% stake in BEA.
Icahn is also involved with developments at Biogen Idec (Nasdaq: BIIB) and WCI Communities (NYSE: WCI), which both unsuccessfully explored sales. WCI rejected a $22 per share takeover offer from Icahn in early 2007, only to see its stock plummet on the housing slowdown.
In 2008, Icahn targeted Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) after the Internet company failed to work out an acceptable merger agreement with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Microsoft walked away from its bid for Yahoo! after months of bickering.
The Trading Radar highlights key earnings and economic announcements for tomorrow's trading session:
Before Market Opens:
Economics:
8:30am ETEmployment Cost Index - no Street consensus
Initial jobless claims - Street Sees 520K
Continuing Claims - Street Sees 5.75MEarnings:
Abiomed, Inc. (NASDAQ: ABMD) – consensus loss $0.21
Abraxis BioScience, Inc. (NASDAQ: ABII) – consensus loss $0.55
ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACIW) – consensus EPS $0.29
Alexandria Real Estate (NYSE: ARE) – consensus EPS $1.13
American Shared Hospital Services (NYSE: AMS) – no consensus
ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANSS) – consensus EPS $0.41
Arbinet (NASDAQ: ARBX) – no consensus
ArQule, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARQL) – consensus loss $0.26
Astronics (NASDAQ: ATRO) – consensus EPS $0.15
ATP Oil & Gas (NYSE: ATPG) – consensus loss $0.08
AURIZON MINES LTD (NYSE: AZK) – consensus EPS $0.03
BioLase Technology (NASDAQ: BLTI) – consensus EPS $0.03
Blackrock Kelso Capital Corp. (NASDAQ: BKCC) – consensus ...
