Icahn takes $800m Netflix profit
October 23, 2013
Active investor Carl Icahn has cashed in on his Netflix holding taking advantage of a 4.5 fold gain in its shares since he bought more than nine percent of the company only 14 months ago.
Icahn, whose firm acquired Netflix shares for an average price of $58, is booking profits of between $700 million and $800 million on the 3 million shares he sold in the 12 days beginning on October 10th according to an SEC filing.
Icahn Enterprises has assets of approximately $29 billion, said in the filing that “as a hardened veteran of seven bear markets I have learned that when you are lucky and/or smart enough to have made a total return of 457 percent in only 14 months it is time to take some of the chips off the table.”
He added in the filing and a subsequent tweet: “I want to thank Reed Hastings, Ted Sarandos and the rest of the Netflix team for a job well done. And last but not least, I wish to thank Kevin Spacey,” the last a reference to the actor’s role in House of Cards, the first Netflix exclusive production.