SEC charges Carl Icahn with hiding billions of dollars worth of stock pledges

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn with illegally failing to disclose billions of dollars worth of personal margin loans pledged against the value of his Icahn Enterprises stock.

Icahn and the publicly-traded company that bears his name agreed to pay $500,000 and $1.5 million, respectively, to settle those charges, the SEC said in a press release Monday.

The SEC said that Icahn pledged anywhere from 51% to 82% of Icahn Enterprises, or IELP, shares outstanding to secure billions worth in margin loans without disclosing to shareholders or federal regulators.

As the effective controlling shareholder of IELP, Icahn would have been expected to make what are known as Schedule 13D filings, which typically detail what a control shareholder expects to do with their influence over a company but also would have had to include information about any encumbrances, like margin loans, on a stake.

"The federal securities laws imposed independent disclosure obligations on both Icahn and IEP," said Osman Nawaz, a senior SEC official. "These disclosures would have revealed that Icahn pledged over half of IEP's outstanding shares at any given time."

A representative for Icahn did not immediately return a request for comment.

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