US billionaire investor Carl Icahn has sold nearly all his shares in South Korean tobacco company KT&G Corp, an industry source said yesterday, apparently heralding the end to his public campaign to transform the way the company is run that aroused fierce opposition.
Icahn-led funds sold the 7 million shares, which account for 4.75 percent of KT&G shares, for 425 billion won (US$460 million) before the South Korean stock market opened yesterday, the person told Dow Jones Newswires. Each share was sold at a discount of 3.8 percent to Monday's closing price of 63,100 won.
Icahn had a 5.27 percent stake, or 7.76 million shares, in the South Korean company as of the end of last month.
KT&G couldn't confirm the sale and Citigroup, the sole bookrunner for the transaction, was not immediately available for comment on the deal.
The move sent KT&G shares sharply lower. By midday, the shares were down 4.4 percent to 60,300 won, compared with a 0.1 percent rise in the main bourse.
"The absence of Icahn cools off expectations for a management battle, removing upside momentum," Korea Investment & Securities analyst Lee Kyeong-joo said.
Three Icahn-led funds and investment fund Steel Partners II Ltd, led by Warren Lichtenstein, have waged a high-profile campaign for change this year at the former government tobacco monopoly by exercising joint voting rights.
Icahn and Lichtenstein ended that relationship in August.
The four funds demanded KT&G return value to shareholders, including by selling idle land holdings and listing a profitable unit that manufactures products related to the ginseng root, popular in Asia for its perceived medicinal qualities.
Such high-profile investor activism is controversial in South Korea, which remains ambivalent about the role of foreign capital in the world's 10th-largest economy.
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