Often referred to as a corporate raider, it is believed that billionaire investor Carl Icahn has his eye on Waterloo-based Research in Motion.
The speculation alone that Icahn, 75, has invested in the stumbling tech company sent RIM’s stock up 81 cents on Tuesday.
Icahn is a New York City investor. Forbes lists his net worth at $13-billion, making him the 61st richest person in the world, and the 23rd richest in the United States.
Icahn graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and dropped out of the New York University School of Medicine.
He began his career on Wall Street in 1961 with $4,000 in poker winnings. But it wasn’t until the 1980s that Icahn really started to make his mark.
Icahn started staging buyouts of troubled companies, and then forced them to change their business, restructure, and buy back stock.
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Companies that Icahn has taken a substantial or controlling stake in include: Motorola Mobility, Texaco, Western Union, Viacom, Marvel Comics, Revlon, Clorox, and Blockbuster.
At Motorola, Icahn pressed the company to split its patents from its cellphone business and cashed in when Internet search giant Google paid $12.5 billion U.S. to buy the business.
Forbes reports that Icahn’s fund is up 20 per cent in 2011, thanks in large part to his holdings in Biogen, a biotechnology company that specializes in drugs for neurological disorders and cancer, and a large stake in Motorola Mobility.
He and his wife Gail have two children, Brett and Michelle.
What Icahn could do with RIM remains a mystery. However Vic Alboini, the CEO of Toronto-based Jaguar Financial, says that if it’s disclosed that Icahn is a shareholder at RIM, the company must reach out to him and say, “What should we do that would satisfy you.”
“Strictly from the point of view of RIM, you do not want to ignore Mr. Icahn,” says Alboini. “He will not stop. He will move forward and cause the change I think that shareholders want.”
In the past, when Icahn takes stake in a company, he forces it to become more profitable, the shares generally rise, and Icahn cashes in on his investment.
As a shareholder, Icahn could put the pressure on RIM for new board members to be appointed or pass a resolution to put the company up for sale, says Alboini.
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