Even Homer nods and so, apparently, does Carl Icahn.Losses on WCI Communities (NYSE: WCI) and Lear (NYSE: LEA) have given his activist hedge funds their first quarterly declines in their 3-year history, according to Bloomberg News. The funds are only down 1.5%, and are are still up nearly 20%, before fees, on the year. The funds manage $7.1 billion.
What's interesting is that Icahn's big losses came on companies that he sought to acquire and saw his bids rejected by management. But given that WCI rejected Icahn's $22 a share bid and the stock currently trades around $4, the failure of Icahn's overtures is probably a boon to shareholders.
A 1.5% decline is pretty minor setback -- and I would expect Icahn to recover. While his career has been a huge success landing him in the upper echelons of the Forbes list, it's also been marked by several high profile failures: Icahn's blunders at the helm of TWA that led to its bankruptcy exposed his weakness as an operational manager.
But as an activist investor and bottom-fisher, Mr. Icahn is virtually unparalleled. His publicly traded company Icahn Enterprises (NYSE: IEP) continues to be an extremely strong performer, even as virtually everything else touching real estate has floundered.
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