As hundreds of investors prepare to pile into alternative investments, the corporate raider Carl Icahn plans to hand back a chunk of capital from his $7 billion fund.
Mr Icahn, who gained notoriety from his role in takeover battles for RJR Nabisco, Texaco and Viacom in the 1980s, said yesterday that he would return about $1.75 billion to third-party investors.
The billionaire investor, 75, will continue to manage more than $5 billion through Icahn Capital but no longer wants to fret about managing other investors’ money, he wrote in a six-paragraph letter sent to regulators yesterday.
“While it may sound ‘corny’ to some, the losses that were incurred by investors in our funds in 2008 bothered me a great deal more, in many respects, than my own losses,” he wrote.
His fund has gained 8.7 per cent since January, above the average hedge fund return of 2.08 per cent over the same period.