On November 20, 2023, Barrack, Rodos & Bacine was appointed lead counsel in Okaro v. Icahn Enterprises, LLP, et al., Case No. 1:23-cv-21773, where it represents the Court-appointed lead plaintiff, Phillip Kosowsky, and a putative class of investors of Icahn Enterprises, LLP (“IEP”) who purchased IEP depositary units. The action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida before the Honorable K. Michael Moore.
On May 2, 2023, a report issued by Hindenburg Research made a number of explosive allegations about IEP. The report alleged that IEP had inflated the value of its assets, including valuing its stake in a meat packaging business at $243 million when that company’s market value was just $89 million. The report also alleged that the company has run a “Ponzi-like” scheme of selling shares to new investors in order to pay out annual dividends at a yield rate as high as 50.5%, which Hindenburg characterized as “absurd” and “unsupported” when taking the company’s cash flow and net asset value into account.
IEP issued press releases on May 2, May 4, and May 10, 2023, containing refutations of Hindenburg’s claims. But IEP also disclosed on May 10, 2023, that it had received an inquiry from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York seeking documents relating to “corporate governance, capitalization, securities offerings, dividends, valuation, marketing materials, due diligence and other materials.”
Following these disclosures, the trading price of IEP units fell almost 40%, from approximately $50 per unit on May 1, 2023 to approximately $32 per unit on May 10, 2023. Following subsequent disclosures, including the revelation that IEP’s Board of Directors had cut its dividend from $2 per unit to $1 per unit in early August 2023, the trading price of IEP units has continued to decline, closing at $16.87 per unit on November 30, 2023.
A consolidated complaint in the action will be filed no later than January 12, 2024.
If you have information that you believe is pertinent to the action, we encourage you to reach out to us – by contacting Mark R. Stein or Linda Border at Barrack, Rodos & Bacine, at the toll-free number 877-386-3304, or via email at investoralert@barrack.com.