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

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, half of the firm’s previous $2 per unit payout. Following the announcement, the stock fell about 30%. 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 valuation and pointed to “ponzi-like economic structures” at the holding company. The market value and stock for IEP has plummented since Hindenburg released its short position.