Lions Gate Secondary Clears Out Carl Icahn (LGF)

Carl Icahn was supposed to be done and through with his efforts against Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation (NYSE: LGF).  That was what we thought at any rate based upon prior news releases and prior reports.  The company is selling shares in a secondary offering today at a slight discount to the closing price yesterday and the sale is all for holders, all under Carl Icahn, rather than for the benefit of the company.

Lions Gate has priced this secondary public offering of 19,201,000 shares of common stock at $7.00 per share.  Shares closed yesterday at $7.10 and the 52-week range is $5.69 to $7.84. 

All of the shares are being sold by certain investment funds affiliated with Carl Icahn.  After the offering is completed the Carl Icahn funds will still own approximately 3.1% of the outstanding common shares of Lions Gate.  The sellers have also granted an overallotment option to the sole underwriting firm of Piper Jaffray to purchase up to an additional 2,879,985 common shares.   & Co. is acting as the sole underwriter in the offering.

Shares of Lions Gate are right at the $7.00 pricing, so the stock is down 1.4% from yesterday’s close.  Frankly, for a stock that trades only about 550,000 shares per day, an offering of this size is being very well absorbed even though this technically does not change the real float.

When you consider that Icahn was adding to the Lions Gate stake in 2009 at less than $5.00 per share, this was not exactly a bad outcome for Icahn.

JON C. OGG