Icahn Enterprises halves quarterly dividend months after short-selling report, shares plunge

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Months into the fallout from a damning short-selling report, shares for corporate raider and activist investor Carl Icahn’s conglomerate Icahn Enterprises plunged Friday after the firm halved its quarterly dividend

NEW YORK — Months into the fallout from a damning short-selling report, shares for corporate raider and activist investor Carl Icahn's conglomerate Icahn Enterprises plunged Friday after the firm halved its quarterly dividend.

In sharing second-quarter financial results on Friday, Icahn Enterprises declared a distribution of $1 per depositary unit, representing a 12% annualized yield. That's half of the firm's previous $2 per unit payout. Following the announcement, IEP stock fell about 30% Friday morning.

The quarterly divided slash comes months after a May 2 report from short-selling firm Hindenburg Research, which claimed that IEP has been using inflated asset valuations. The report also pointed to “ponzi-like economic structures” at the holding company — alleging that Icahn has used money from new investors to pay out dividends to old investors.

IEP and Icahn have denied the allegations made in Hindenburg's report, previously stating that they would “fight back.”

Well before Friday’s announcement, the market value and stock for IEP had plummeted since Hindenburg released its short position. The company’s market cap has been cut by roughly half — from about $18 billion on May 1 to some $9 billion Friday — and IEP’s stock has fallen about 51% since the start of May.

For the second quarter, IEP reported a net loss of $269 million, wider than the year-earlier loss of $128 million.

“I believe the second quarter partially reflected the impact of short-selling on companies we control or invest in, which I