Carl Icahn – Visionary, Philanthropist, Successful Investor

Carl Icahn is a visionary entrepreneur who helped transform Las Vegas into what it is today: the world capital of entertainment and fun. But his successes were achieved as an investor, an entrepreneur, and a leader. Icahn is known as an investor who liked to buy companies, transform them according to his vision, and then sell them at a profit. He also made significant contributions in Atlantic City, not just in Las Vegas, and this is his story.

Carl Icahn

Early Life

Born on February 16, 1936, Carl is a native of New York and grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, where he also attended high school. His parents were teachers. After earning a degree in philosophy from Princeton University in 1957, he attended New York University School of Medicine, which he left after two years, and then enlisted in the army.

The Rise on Wall Street

In 1961, Carl began his career on Wall Street. Since then, he has become one of America’s best-known and most influential investors. In 1968, he founded Icahn & Co., a securities firm specializing in arbitrage and options trading. In 1978, he began acquiring substantial and, at times, controlling stakes in various companies. Over the years, these holdings have included Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Marvel, Revlon, Time Warner, Yahoo!, Lions Gate, Motorola, Genzyme, Biogen, BEA Systems, Dell, Herbalife, Transocean, Netflix, Apple, and eBay.

Icahn, the corporate raider

Icahn became known in the 1980s for his approach and his desire to give meaning to his work as an investor. While most investors are passive, buying shares to sell them later at a higher price, Icahn took over companies to change their management or strategy, thereby guiding them to the next level according to his vision. How did he do this? He bought shares in companies he considered undervalued, put pressure on management to change their mindset or strategy, and then forced changes to increase the company’s value, after which he would, of course, sell the company at a profit.

Icahn and Las Vegas

During the financial crisis, the Fontainebleau Las Vegas project went bankrupt. In February 2010, Icahn, through a subsidiary of his company, Icahn Enterprises LP, acquired the Fontainebleau Las Vegas complex for approximately $150 million (a very low price relative to its assets). He retained ownership without completing the project, and in 2017 he sold it, realizing a substantial profit.

Icahn was not interested in managing luxury casinos for the long term. His strategy was based on buying distressed assets, cutting costs, and then selling the property when the market became favorable.

In March, he was part of a group of creditors that purchased the Tropicana Casino & Resort Atlantic City, rescuing the company from bankruptcy for $200 million.

Following the acquisition, Icahn invested heavily to renovate and stabilize the business. Improvements included renovating hotel rooms, modernizing the casino, and adding new amenities and entertainment options. The casino went from severe decline to becoming one of the top-performing casinos in Atlantic City in the following years. In 2018, Icahn sold Tropicana Entertainment in a deal worth approximately $1.85 billion. It is a classic example of his strategy: buy low → restructure → sell high.

Another project he worked on in Las Vegas was the Stratosphere. It is now called The STRAT. Icahn bought the Stratosphere Las Vegas out of bankruptcy in the late ’90s. He owned the property for several years (as he did with the Fontainebleau), focusing on cutting costs rather than spectacular renovations. In 2008, he sold it to American Casino & Entertainment Properties, making a significant profit.

Charitable and Philanthropic Activities

In addition to his numerous business ventures, Icahn has been involved in a wide range of charitable and philanthropic activities, supporting fields such as medicine, sports, and education.

The Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island in New York bears his name, as does the Carl C. Icahn Center for Science.

Icahn made a substantial contribution to Princeton University to fund a genomics laboratory bearing his name, the Carl C. Icahn Laboratory at the university’s Institute for Integrated Genomics. He has also made significant contributions to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, of which he is a trustee; in return, the hospital named a building the “Icahn Medical Institute” and, in 2013, renamed the Mount Sinai School of Medicine the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Icahn has founded and currently supports six schools, all of which have significantly higher average scores on reading and math tests than those of students in public schools. Carl Icahn asserts that the primary challenge of our time is the disparity in the United States between the very wealthy and the poor working class, who do not enjoy the same opportunities, which is why education is his primary focus in his philanthropic work.

His foundation, the Children’s Rescue Fund, built Icahn House in the Bronx, a 65-unit housing complex for homeless families—specifically single pregnant women and single mothers with children—and operates Icahn House East and Icahn House West, both of which are shelters for the homeless in New York.

Icahn, inspiration for a famous movie character

It is said that Oliver Stone drew inspiration from Icahn to create the character of the ruthless, hostile capitalist Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street (1987), a role played by Michael Douglas. One of the speeches Icahn gave at shareholder meetings served as the basis for Gekko’s famous line, “Greed is good.”

Sources: carlicahn.com, Wikipedia, philanthropicpeople.com