One year ago
»» Carl Icahn nearly doubled his stake in Lions Gate Entertainment and offered, for the second time in 2010, to buy the entire media company.
His $6.50 per share offer valued Lions Gate at $767 million. While the company promised to put the matter before its shareholders, it had previously adopted a poison pill defense meant to fend off activists.
Icahn continued buying Lions Gate stock and on August 30, 2011 he agreed to sell his entire stake at $7 per share and stop publicly berating the company’s management. Icahn’s stake will be purchased by the company and by Mark Rachesky, a former executive of Icahn’s hedge fund who—as a large shareholder and board member of Lions Gate—assisted the company in resisting Icahn’s takeover attempts.
“My own ’slate’ is pretty full,” Icahn said in a statement announcing the sale. “I therefore determined that it is a good time to exit.”
He has since moved on to a proxy fight with Clorox, which has twice rejected his offers to buy the company for as much as $80 per share. Clorox closed at $62.47 on September 6.
»» Bulls said it was too soon to dump gold. John Paulson, George Soros and David Einhorn were all acquiring the precious metal, which had hit a peak of $1,264 an ounce on June 21.
As the economic recovery stagnated, the classic safe-haven commodity continued to pay off. Paulson, last year’s top earner, has had as much of 90% of his assets in gold or the gold share class of his funds.
But with every tic upward, naysayers spoke louder. “Ultimately, the gold bet boils down to total loss of confidence in the full faith and credit, and the macroeconomic management, of the United States,” Roubini Global Economics’ Arnab Das and Shelley Goldberg wrote in May.
“A swift and severe correction is coming,” Vedant ‘VK’ Mimani, the lead portfolio manager for the Atyant Capital Global Opportunities Fund, added in August.
That correction has yet to arrive. This week, gold touched a new intraday record of more than $1,900 per ounce.
See also: Debunking the gold bubble myth, Platinum Partners pans for gold and The year of the gold bug.
Five years ago
»» David Einhorn cashed in at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, finishing in 18th place and winning $660,000.
“I got more than I bargained for,” he told The New York Times after he was beaten by eventual winner Jamie Gold.
The Greenlight Capital chief, whose grandfather suffered from Parkinson’s disease, donated his winnings to Michael J. Fox’s Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
Einhorn’s luck is less apparent this year. He was he knocked out in the second day of the 2011 World Series of Poker and his flagship fund is reportedly down more than 5% through the end of August. He also recently abandoned a chance to sink money into his beloved New York Mets. Einhorn had planned to buy a minority stake in the franchise but the deal fell apart in August when he didn’t receive his desired guarantee of a clear path to eventual full ownership.
»» Paul Tudor Jones tried to build a new regional airport near his gigantic game reserve in Tanzania.
Jones went public with an attempt to construct a new international gateway adjacent to the Singita Gremeti Reserves in the Serengeti. Although he had met little resistance while constructing uber-luxury lodges on the 340,000-acre resort, the airport plan stagnated due to a “shortage of funds,” according to a local report. In 2009, Jones recommitted to picking up 20 percent of the airport’s $350 million tab, with Swiss firm Sipio-BV reportedly on the hook for the remainder.
Jones is off the project, according to a person familiar with the situation. The airport remains unconstructed and eco-tourists traveling to Jones’ $1,675-per-night lodges must take a two hour flight from Kilimanjaro International Airport to a small airstrip near the reserve.
A spokeswoman for Jones declined to comment.
