Carl C. Icahn

He was married to Liba Trejbal from 1979 to 1999. They had two children. Businessman, investor, and philanthropist Brett Icahn is one of them. Carl married Gail Golden in 1999.

The ‘Icahn Scholar Program,’ the ‘Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology,’ the ‘Carl C. Icahn Center for Science,’ and the ‘Icahn Stadium’ are named after him.

This hard-line investor and negotiator is also known for his philanthropic efforts. He funded a genomics laboratory, known as the ‘Carl C. Icahn Laboratory,’ at the ‘Princeton University.’ He contributed to the ‘Mount Sinai Hospital’ in New York, which renamed the ‘Mount Sinai School of Medicine’ as the ‘Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’ and named another building as the ‘Icahn Medical Institute.’

Carl was born on February 16, 1936, in New York City, New York, US, in the Jewish family of Michael and Bella Icahn. His father, an atheist, was a cantor who later served as a substitute teacher, and his mother was a schoolteacher.

He studied at the ‘Far Rockaway High School’ and attended ‘Princeton University,’ from where he obtained a ‘Bachelor of Arts’ degree in philosophy in 1957. He followed his mother’s wish and enrolled at the ‘New York University School of Medicine,’ but left his studies after two years to join the US army.

Following a stint in the US army, he commenced his career as a stockbroker in 1961. He founded the securities firm ‘Icahn & Co.’ in 1968. The company dealt with option-trading and risk arbitrage. He took a loan of US$ 400,000 from an uncle to buy a place for it on the ‘New York Stock Exchange.’

He started acquiring substantial shares of individual companies in 1978, thereby obtaining controlling positions.

He went for a hostile takeover of a major American airline ‘TWA’ in 1985, and became its chairman, thereby earning the reputation of a "corporate raider." He resorted to "asset stripping," or selling the assets, of ‘TWA’ to repay the loan he took to buy the company.

He took ‘TWA’ private in 1988 and earned US$ 469 million as personal profit, while ‘TWA’ was left with a debt of US$ 540 million. He sold the London routes of ‘TWA’ to ‘American Airlines’ for US$ 445 million, in 1991. He then came up with ‘lowestfares.com’ to sell tickets of ‘TWA.’

Meanwhile, in late 1986, while the American integrated steel-producer ‘U.S. Steel’ faced work stoppage, Icahn initiated a US$ 7 billion hostile takeover of an 89% stake in the company. He went for separate negotiations with the management and the union. He also began proxy battles with the management and shareholders. However, on January 8, 1987, he stopped his efforts to purchase the company.