The last purchase was an additional 0.89%  of the outstanding common shares.  These shares were purchased on the New York Stock Exchange at $4.532 ($US) on average per share.  This now takes Icahn’s position to  12,235,723 shares of Lions Gate common stock.  Icahn has been long and wrong in this one, and that 12.2+ million shares is worth about 17 days of trading volume.

The reason noted was “the belief that the common shares of Lions Gate were undervalued.”  Lions Gate fell by 26% to a new 52-week low and multi-year low today alone.  That is after a 50% drop already.  The company warned on soft box office sales and revenues.

This also noted that representatives of the Icahn Affiliates have had discussions with the Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of Lions Gate and intend from time to time to seek to continue to have discussions with representatives of Lions Gate.

Icahn also noted that the affiliates may buy more shares but also reserve the right to dispose of or hedge any of these securities.

So what does Icahn see here?  Is he a fan of horror and sci-fi movies and made for TV series?  More likely, he probably likes that these are down more than 60% from highs.  Shares fell by about 26% today to $3.90, which is a multi-year low close.

Lions Gate has a spotted history on the earnings front.  Before the mud slide that came in the second half of last year, this stock spent most of the four prior years trading between $8.00 and $12.00 for the US-listed shares of the Canadian company which trade on the NYSE.

Icahn Enterprises, L.P. (NYSE: IEP) is Icahn’s public private equity and real estate vehicle.  Those shares are also down almost by two-thirds over the last year.

Jon C. Ogg
February 10, 2009

Various media have published grossly misleading information regarding results at funds managed by Pirate Capital. Some reports have suggested that Pirate funds lost almost 80 percent of their value in the past year. In fact, while assets under management have decreased, average returns over Pirate’s four funds during the last year are about plus 4 percent.

Pirate Capital remains committed to its event-driven strategy to create value for its investors.

Hedgefund.net noted how Pirate Capital had frozen withdrawals from two of its funds.  This article noted that assets wouldn’t be available until positions were sold.

Reuters ran an article this week showing that assets were down considerably.  It listed its stock holdings at $478.9 million as of June 30, down from about $1.5 billion last September, according to a regulatory filing.

As always, you can go visit what Stockpickr has listed as Pirate’s last available large holdings.

Unfortunately in life in the financial markets, when things start to go bad they go really bad.  Just a few months ago, Pirate was one of the names that investors would chase into stock positions when SEC filings came across showing that Pirate had taken a stake.  Being an activist investor is a lot harder now that the financial markets have closed the window for a push to "take on debt to buyback shares" and now that use of financial leverage is once again frowned upon.

Jon C. Ogg
September 13, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.