Icahn Enterprises wins dismissal of investor lawsuit

(Reuters) -Carl Icahn’s investment company Icahn Enterprises won the dismissal of a lawsuit claiming it artificially inflated its share price by issuing unsustainably high dividends to help the billionaire investor obtain large amounts of personal loans.

In a decision on Friday, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore in Miami said shareholders in the proposed class action failed to show that the company made material misrepresentations or omissions and did so with an intent to defraud.

Lawyers for the shareholders did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Icahn Enterprises did not immediately respond to a similar request. Moore gave the shareholders until Oct. 14 to file an amended complaint.

Icahn Enterprises shares have fallen more than three-quarters since May 2023, when the short-selling firm Hindenburg Research questioned its dividends and Icahn’s borrowing, and accused Icahn of overseeing a “Ponzi-like economic structure.”

Last month Icahn agreed without admitting wrongdoing to pay $2 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil charges that he failed to disclose his significant borrowing against the shares.

The shareholders said Icahn Enterprises’ true health became evident as its Auto Parts Plus business went bankrupt, the company slashed its dividend and Icahn renegotiated his loans.

Icahn owns about 85% of his company’s shares, and personally lost many billions of dollars as the share price fell.

In his 28-page decision, Moore cited the company’s disclosures that it could lower dividends, and said its general disclosures about Carl Icahn’s borrowing were sufficient to alert investors to the risks.

He also said Icahn Enterprises’ 2021 annual report disclosed Carl Icahn’s share pledges, and that there were no allegations that any defendant conducted insider trading.

“This conduct suggests that the individual defendants, including Icahn, believed in the long-term value of IEP and is inconsistent with the theory that defendants were engaged in a scheme to artificially inflate the stock price for personal gain,” Moore wrote.

The case is Kosowsky v Icahn Enterprises LP et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, No. 23-21773.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Diane Craft)