By Senad Karaahmetovic
Carl Icahn, the founder and controlling shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, has built more than an 8% stake in Crown Holdings Inc (NYSE:CCK), the Wall Street Journal reports. This makes Icahn Crown’s second-largest shareholder with a stake worth over $700 million.
The activist investor, who made hundreds of millions of dollars recently by betting Elon Musk would buy Twitter at the original deal price, believes Crown should shed noncore units and buy back more stock, the report added. Crown should either spin off or sell its noncore assets, according to Icahn. This way, the company could fully focus on its core beverage-can business.
Crown shares are down almost 40% year-to-end after last week’s plunge. The company meaningfully cut its full-year profit outlook so that it now expects to earn between $6.60 and $6.70 per share, down from the prior range of $8.00-8.20.
CEO Timothy Donahue admitted on the earnings call that Crown was caught off guard by “such a sudden and sharp decline” in demand for beverage cans.
“You never like to say, we’re caught off guard, but I think we were really,” Mr. Donahue said on last week’s conference call.