Trump backers Carl Icahn, John Paulson make huge profits
10 Nov 2016
Hedge funds run by billionaires Carl Icahn and John Paulson reaped the biggest profits the day Donald Trump was officially declared the winner of the presidential election. The investors have one other important factor in common: They both advised Trump on his campaign.
By the time the market closed Wednesday, Icahn had made more than $700 million on his stock portfolio, according to Bloomberg data based on his most recent disclosures.
That included a windfall of more than $219 million from his majority ownership in CVR Energy, whose shares surged 24 per cent in the wake of Trump's victory. Icahn also made more than $100 million on his stake in mining company Freeport-McMoRan, which rose 8 per cent, and another $100 million on his stock in his own publicly traded company, Icahn Enterprises . He scored another $65 million on his massive bet on insurer AIG, an investment that's currently valued at about $2.8 billion.
Icahn has been a vocal supporter of Trump and an informal advisor to his presidential campaign, initially landing on Trump's short list for Treasury secretary early in the election cycle last year. After expressing some interest in the job, though, Icahn declined Trump's invitation to formally join the candidate's economic advisory council.
Following Trump's election, Icahn reiterated to CNBC that he would not accept a cabinet position in the Trump administration, preferring instead to focus on running his own business.
The gains reflected by the Bloomberg data may not be all that Icahn reaped. The billionaire investor attended Trump's Tuesday night victory party as the election results rolled in, but left early to load up on more stock as Dow and S&P futures plunged in the middle of the night, according to CNBC. Those new holdings are not yet reflected in Icahn's regulatory disclosures, so it's unclear how much he has gained or lost on them so far. (Icahn did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.)
Meanwhile, another hedge fund manager who has served as one of Trump's economic advisors, John Paulson, also made a killing on his election win. The billionaire investor's Paulson & Co hedge fund was up more than $463 million in its stock portfolio on Wednesday, helped by a surge in the pharmaceutical stocks which represent the fund's largest holdings.
The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index rose nearly 9 per cent during the day, its best one-day performance since 2008. Concerns that a Hillary Clinton administration would impose greater price regulation on drug companies had put a damper on pharmaceutical stocks for more than a year. That had knocked billions of dollars in value off Paulson's top positions, including Allergan, Mylan , Teva and Valeant Pharmaceuticals (which had also suffered from other problems including an accounting scandal).
A President Trump, however, is not expected to crack down on drug pricing, and may also allow pharmaceutical companies to bring their giant overseas cash hoards back to the US at a reduced tax rate, a program known as a repatriation tax holiday. Those potential advantages boosted Paulson's pharma stocks, especially two US drugmakers that are headquartered in Ireland for tax-reduction purposes. Shire rose nearly 12 per cent, adding $100 million in value to Paulson's portfolio, while Allergan stock rose almost 9 per cent, yielding the hedge fund another $68 million. Before the election, Paulson was down about 15 per cent this year across its funds, a person familiar with the matter told Fortune.
Other winners included the hedge fund Viking Global, which made more than $250 million during the day, as well as Leon Cooperman's Omega Advisors and David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital, which each gained more than $80 million. Cooperman had not supported Trump or Hillary Clinton, while Einhorn had donated more than $50,000 to Democratic political action committees this year.
Not all hedge funds had a good day, though - even though the Dow and S&P 500 ended Wednesday up more than 1 per cent each, proving wrong the universally dire predictions for the market in the unexpected Trump victory scenario. Trump's win did punish stocks thought to benefit from Obamacare, the health care law that Republicans have pledged to repeal. Tech stocks, thought to thrive more under Clinton given her support of net neutrality and other tech-friendly policies, also sold off, including Netflix, down almost 2 per cent.
That hurt technology-focused hedge fund Coatue Management, which lost about $58 million during the day, including more than $10 million apiece on Netflix stock and Activision Blizzard, as well as American Tower Corp, which sank 6 per cent. Glenview's Larry Robbins also lost more than $23 million in his hedge fund, as his pro-Obamacare bets on healthcare companies turned sour: Hospital Corporation of America stock dropped 11 per cent, losing him $127 million; and Tenet Healthcare stock plummeted 25 per cent, taking another $90 million from Glenview's portfolio.
Still, the day had started off worse for Robbins, who had supported Jeb Bush's candidacy for president: a At one point Glenview was down as much as $100 million, before the healthcare stocks recovered somewhat later in the day.
