The billionaire activist investor would have been $345M richer if he had held on to his Lionsgate stock — which closed today at $14.22 per share — instead of selling the bulk of his holdings late last year for about $7 per share. At one point he owned 33% of Lionsgate. But he shrugged off his miscall in an interview this afternoon on CNBC. “You can’t win ‘em all,” he said. “I sent those guys an email congratulating them” following Lionsgate’s success this weekend with The Hunger Games. “You know, it’s very hard to pick stocks, but it’s impossible to pick the right movie. When it was $7 — unless Lionsgate had that big hit — there would be problems, I thought. Obviously we were wrong.” No need to feel sorry for Icahn. His portfolio appreciated 35% last year. “We are pretty proud of our performance,” he says. But if he had held on to Lionsgate, it would have been up 37%, he says. The stock has appreciated 70.9% since the end of 2011.

Carl Icahn. A true class A asshole.
This is news?
It’s interesting how much better a company performs once they rid themselves of this investor. First Marvel and now Lionsgate.
It’s funny–I see our colleagues in the biz make one $500k deal and act like they are the man. But on average, Icahn’s made more than $500k every single day for the past 40 years. Not exaggerating. Look it up.
Icahn may truly be whatever expletive you call him–but he is a brilliant mind.
He saw the potential in LGF. Unfortunately, he got out too early.
To be up 35% last year vs the market having single digit growth? Wow! That’s fantastic. It’s time to appreciate people like this who can make a buck. They’re the job creators, not the commenters.
Wow, what a stupid thing to say. You should see what happens to many of the companies he gets involved with, Lionsgate included. It’s the exact opposite of job creation. All he wants to do is make a buck for himself. He doesn’t make companies stronger.
Wonder if it’s time to short it.
When Icahn turned 23 he made more $$ than everyone at Liongate combined will see in their lifetime, that’s even if Hunger Games goes on to make 5 billion dollars.
That said, Congrats to Lionsgate on Hunger Games. The reason I appreciate it is that it led to the US release of the movie it ripped off “Battle Royale” which might be the most sick but genius film ever.
By the way, of course Battle Royale ripped off a prior film itself, but it made it much better. Haven’t seen HG yet to see if it ecliped BR.
What do you mean?
How did he make money when he “…turned 23…”? Trust fund or something?
I’ve owned shares of Lionsgate, that I bought for $6/share, for many years. The stock went nowhere but I held on because of their extensive film library. I was happy when Icon’s offer to buy the company for $7/share was rejected. Finally the company’s true value is reflected in its share price.
His analysis makes sense to me. Lionsgate was in trouble at $7 unless they came out with a hit and everyone knows that’s something that’s unbelievably foolish to predict. If I told you Lionsgate had a 90% chance of failing and a 10% chance of succeeding you’d predict they’d fail, but you still have a 10% chance of being wrong – that’s what happened here.
Jack makes an excellent point. The super rich are always easy targets and often live up to their criticisms, but the guy has incredible investment savvy.
What’s wrong with that? Management changes happen all the time. If he does it to make a profit, awesome for him. Basically, he gets into companies that are in bad financial shape, changes it around to make it lean and profitable. That is the goal with most board members of a company.
Imagine if you were his client. You’d be pretty happy with how he has brought you a return on your investment. Kudos to the guy.