Short sellers take on Carl Icahn

Activist investor Carl Icahn’s net worth fell by $10 billion (€9.1 billion) last week after Icahn Enterprises was targeted in a report by feared short-selling outfit Hindenburg Research.

Sympathy for the 87-year old corporate raider was thin on the ground.

“There is a karmic quality to this short report that reinforces the notion of a circle of life and death,” said hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. “This is pure gold,” tweeted billionaire businessman Michael Dell, adding a laughing emoji for good measure.

Both men have history with Icahn, although their gloating is the least of his worries right now. Hindenburg, well-known for previous reports on questionable practices at Indian conglomerate Adani Group and electric car maker Nikola, is a respected outfit. Its charges that Icahn Enterprises is over-valuing its holdings and using a “Ponzi-like” structure to pay dividends are being taken seriously, as evidenced by its collapsing share price.

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It’s unfamiliar territory for Icahn, an activist famous for taking on companies such as McDonald’s and Apple. As one Bloomberg columnist quipped, the hunter has become the hunted.