From Icahn Enterprises L.P. December 2013 Investor Presentation:
Across all of our businesses, our success is based on a simple formula: we seek to find undervalued companies in the Graham & Dodd tradition, a methodology for valuing stocks that primarily looks for deeply depressed prices. However, while the typical Graham & Dodd value investor purchases undervalued securities and waits for results, we often become actively involved in the companies we target. That activity may involve a broad range of approaches, from influencing the management of a target to take steps to improve shareholder value, to acquiring a controlling interest or outright ownership of the target company in order to implement changes that we believe are required to improve its business, and then operating and expanding that business. This activism has brought about very strong returns over the years.
Today, we are a diversified holding company owning subsidiaries engaged in the following operating businesses: Investment, Automotive, Energy, Gaming, Railcar, Food Packaging, Metals, Real Estate and Home Fashion. Through our Investment segment, we have significant positions in various investments, which currently include Chesapeake Energy (CHK), Forest Laboratories (FRX), Netflix (NFLX), Transocean Ltd. (RIG), Apple Inc. (APPL), Herbalife Ltd. (HLF), Nuance Communications, Inc. (NUAN), Talisman Energy Inc. (TLM) and Hologic Inc. (HOLX).
Several of our operating businesses started out as investment positions in debt or equity securities, held either directly by Icahn Capital or Mr. Icahn. Those positions ultimately resulted in control or complete ownership of the target company. Most recently, we acquired a controlling interest in CVR Energy, Inc. (‘‘CVR’’), which started out as a position in our Investment segment and is now an operating subsidiary that comprises our Energy segment. As of November 29, 2013, based on the closing sale price of CVR stock and distributions since we acquired control, we had gains of approximately $1.7 billion on our purchase of CVR. The recent acquisition of CVR, like our other operating subsidiaries, reflects our opportunistic approach to value creation, through which returns may be obtained by, among other things, promoting change through minority positions at targeted companies in our Investment segment or by acquiring control of those target companies that we believe we could run more profitably ourselves.
In 2000, we began to expand our business beyond our traditional real estate activities, and to fully embrace our activist strategy. On January 1, 2000, the closing sale price of our depositary units was $7.625 per depositary unit. On November 29, 2013, our depositary units closed at $121.07 per depositary unit, representing an increase 1,850% since January 1, 2000 (including reinvestment of distributions into additional depositary units and taking into account in-kind distributions of depositary units). Comparatively, the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial and Russell 2000 indices increased approximately 60%, 95% and 172%, respectively, over the same period (including reinvestment of distributions into those indices).
During the next several years, we see a favorable opportunity to follow an activist strategy that centers on the purchase of target stock and the subsequent removal of any barriers that might interfere with a friendly purchase offer from a strong buyer. Alternatively, in appropriate circumstances, we or our subsidiaries may become the buyer of target companies, adding them to our portfolio of operating subsidiaries, thereby expanding our operations through such opportunistic acquisitions. We believe that the companies that we target for our activist activities are undervalued for many reasons, often including inept management. Unfortunately for the individual investor, in particular, and the economy, in general, many poor management teams are often unaccountable and very difficult to remove.
Unlike the individual investor, we have the wherewithal to purchase companies that we feel we can operate more effectively than incumbent management. In addition, through our Investment segment, we are in a position to pursue our activist strategy by purchasing stock or debt positions and trying to promulgate change through a variety of activist approaches, ranging from speaking and negotiating with the board and CEO to proxy fights, tender offers and taking control. We work diligently to enhance value for all shareholders and we believe that the best way to do this is to make underperforming management teams and boards accountable or to replace them.
The Chairman of the Board of our general partner, Carl C. Icahn, has been an activist investor since 1980. Mr. Icahn believes that he has never seen a time for activism that is better than today. Many major companies have substantial amounts of cash. We believe that they are hoarding cash, rather than spending it, because they do not believe investments in their business will translate to earnings.
We believe that one of the best ways for many cash-rich companies to achieve increased earnings is to use their large amounts of excess cash, together with advantageous borrowing opportunities, to purchase other companies in their industries and take advantage of the meaningful synergies that could result. In our opinion, the CEOs and Boards of Directors of undervalued companies that would be acquisition targets are the major road blocks to this logical use of assets to increase value, because we believe those CEOs and Boards are not willing to give up their power and perquisites, even if they have done a poor job in administering the companies they have been running. In addition, acquirers are often unwilling to undertake the arduous task of launching a hostile campaign. This is precisely the situation in which we believe a strong activist catalyst is necessary.
We believe that the activist catalyst adds value because, for companies with strong balance sheets, acquisition of their weaker industry rivals is often extremely compelling financially. We further believe that there are many transactions that make economic sense, even at a large premium over market. Acquirers can use their excess cash, that is earning a very low return, and/or borrow at the advantageous interest rates now available, to acquire a target company. In either case, an acquirer can add the target company’s earnings and the income from synergies to the acquirer’s bottom line, at a relatively low cost. But for these potential acquirers to act, the target company must be willing to at least entertain an offer. We believe that often the activist can step in and remove the obstacles that a target may seek to use to prevent an acquisition. We have spent many years engaging in the activist model which we believe will be increasingly important in the coming years.
It is our belief that our strategy will continue to produce strong results into the future, and that belief is reflected in the action of the Board of Directors of our general partner, which announced on May 29, 2013, an increase to our annual distribution from $4.00 to $5.00 per depositary unit. We believe that the strong cash flow and asset coverage from our operating segments will allow us to maintain a strong balance sheet and ample liquidity.
In our view Icahn Enterprises L.P. is in a virtuous cycle. We believe that our depositary units will give us another powerful activist tool, allowing us both to use our depositary units as currency for tender offers and acquisitions (both hostile and friendly) where appropriate, and to increase our fire power by raising additional cash through depositary unit sales. All of these factors will, in our opinion, contribute to making our activism even more efficacious, which we expect to enhance our results and stock value.
Here’s the May 2015 update.
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