Eight hundred million dollars. That’s how much Carl Icahn made off of Netflix, Inc. yesterday after selling off 2.99 million shares and cutting his stake nearly in half to 4.5%. He announced the sale with a nod to the Netflix team as well as a tongue-in-cheek mention of House of Cards star Kevin Spacey:
Sold block of NFLX today. Wish to thank Reed Hastings, Ted Sarandos, NFLX team, and last but not least Kevin Spacey: http://t.co/BRWpKOBfD2
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) October 22, 2013
Icahn picked up his Netflix stakes about a year ago, when the stock was trading at $58. Yesterday, the stock closed at $322.52 – a 457% gain for Icahn. Interestingly, the announcement, and speculation of it, caused the company’s share price to plunge (it fell more than 9% yesterday).
Warren Buffett has been making news this week as well, but in a different way. The always-colorful billionaire has been making the rounds on the press to promote 40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World, his son Howard G. Buffett’s book recounting his three-billion-dollar journey to fight hunger and making the argument that each individual has just 40 chances to make an impact on the world. A few of his television appearances have been quite interesting.
On the Today Show, Buffettbusted out a ukulele to show off some of his musical skills to the audience. This isn’t the billionaire’s first public performance. Last year, he did a ukulele duet with Jon Bon Jovi at the Forbes 400 Summit for Philanthropy.
On a more serious note,Buffett spoke with Bloomberg about Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B)’s life after his death, saying he believes the transition will be smooth.
“We’ll start with me dying tomorrow morning,” Buffett said with a chuckle. “The board of directors would meet, probably by telephone, initially, and they know exactly who they would put in as CEO. And that CEO would be terrific, and in many, many respects, much better than I am.”
Here’s to hoping Buffett isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
