Carl Icahn

Carl Celian Icahn (born February 16, 1936) is an American business magnate, investor, activist shareholder, and philanthropist. He is the founder and majority shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, a diversified conglomerate holding company based in New York City. He is also Chairman of Federal-Mogul, an American developer, manufacturer and supplier of powertrain components and vehicle safety products.

Biography

Icahn was raised in the Far Rockaway, Queens section of New York City, where he attended Far Rockaway High School. His family was of Jewish descent. His father was a "dogmatic atheist" and a frustrated opera singer who settled on being a cantor, before becoming a substitute teacher. His mother also worked as a schoolteacher. Carl graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy in 1957 and then joined New York University School of Medicine, but he dropped out after two years to join the army.

Business career and interests

Icahn began his career on Wall Street as a stockbroker in 1961 and in 1968, he formed Icahn & Co., a securities firm that focused on risk arbitrage and options trading. In 1978, he began taking controlling positions in individual companies. He has taken substantial or controlling positions in various corporations including RJR Nabisco, TWA, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Uniroyal, Dan River, Marshall Field's, E-II (Culligan and Samsonite), American Can, USX, Marvel Comics, Revlon, Imclone, Federal-Mogul, Fairmont Hotels, Blockbuster, Kerr-McGee, Time Warner, Netflix, Motorola, and Herbalife.

Bill Ackman

William Albert Ackman (born May 11, 1966), is an American hedge fund manager. He is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management LP, a hedge fund management company. Ackman is considered a contrarian investor. He considers himself an activist investor.

Early life

Ackman was raised in Chappaqua, New York, and he is the son of Ronnie I. (née Posner) and Lawrence David Ackman, the chairman of a New York real estate financing firm, Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group. His family is Jewish.

Education

In 1988, he received a bachelor of arts degree magna cum laude in History from Harvard College. His thesis was "Scaling the Ivy Wall: the Jewish and Asian American Experience in Harvard Admissions." In 1992, he received an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Career

In 1992 Ackman founded the investment firm Gotham Partners with fellow Harvard graduate David P. Berkowitz. This investment firm made small investments in public companies. In 1995, Ackman partnered with the insurance and real estate firm Leucadia National to bid for Rockefeller Center. Although they did not win the deal, the high-profile nature of the bid caused investors to flock to Gotham Partners, growing it to $500 million in assets by 1998.

Carl

Carl may refer to:

See also

Warren Buffett

Warren Edward Buffett (/ˈbʌfᵻt/; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is the most successful investor in the world. Buffett is the chairman, CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, and is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people. He was ranked as the world's wealthiest person in 2008 and as the third wealthiest in 2015. In 2012 Time named Buffett one of the world's most influential people.

Buffett is often referred to as the "Wizard of Omaha" or "Oracle of Omaha," or the "Sage of Omaha," and is noted for his adherence to value investing and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. Buffett is a notable philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes, primarily via the Gates Foundation. On April 11, 2012, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, for which he successfully completed treatment in September 2012. Buffet is also active in contributing to political causes, having endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for president during the 2016 campaign season.

Wall Street

Wall Street is a 0.7-mile-long (1.1 km) street running eight blocks, roughly northwest to southeast, from Broadway to South Street on the East River in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial sector (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or signifying New York-based financial interests.

Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, and the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange.

History

Early years

There are varying accounts about how the Dutch-named "de Waal Straat" got its name. A generally accepted version is that the name of the street was derived from an earthen wall on the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement, perhaps to protect against English colonial encroachment or incursions by Native Americans. A conflicting explanation is that Wall Street was named after Walloons— the Dutch name for a Walloon is Waal. Among the first settlers that embarked on the ship "Nieu Nederlandt" in 1624 were 30 Walloon families. The Dutch word "wal" can be translated as "rampart". However, even some English maps show the name as Waal Straat, and not as Wal Straat.