- In an inside baseball look of Carl Icahn's attempt to unload his 17M shares of Herbalife (HLF -0.2%) in August, Fortune reports the best bid Jefferies was able to obtain was $51.50 per share, roughly $10 less than the open market price at the time.
- Among those Jefferies contacted as a potential buyer was Bill Ackman, who quickly surmised the seller was Icahn.
- A number of events came together, however, giving Icahn just an eight-day window (Aug. 4-12) to sell through an unregistered block trade rather than a formal stock offering. Ackman had his own requirements to worry about, meaning he could only buy about 20% of Icahn's stake within that period.
- Though Jefferies couldn't arrange a sale by the 12th, the process continued, and on Aug. 25 the bank found a group of institutional investors willing to pay $51.50 for 11M of Icahn's 17M shares. The sale would have given Icahn a profit of $167M, but left him holding another 6M shares which could be vulnerable once news of his exit came out. Icahn's response: No deal.
- It was on Aug. 26 when news of his selling interest hit the press. Within hours, Icahn reversed course, picking up another 2.3M shares that day.