New York: For a half-hour Friday afternoon, the eyes of Wall
Street were not on the usual fixations, like the fiscal talks in
Washington, or Apple's earnings or a potential takeover of Dell.
Instead, they were turned to the cable channel CNBC, watching verbal fisticuffs that could rival anything on reality TV, a spat between two hedge fund magnates with a decade-long grudge against each other.
Nominally, the two titans, Carl Icahn and William Ackman, called into CNBC to discuss their contrasting views on Herbalife, a nutritional supplements company. Instead, they slung invective back and forth in a fight that riveted traders and Twitter alike.
How sophisticated was the debate?
"He's like a crybaby in the schoolyard," Icahn thundered in his thick Queens accent. He later declared that his foe was "the quintessential example that if you want a friend on Wall Street, get a dog."
"This is not an honest guy who keeps his word," Ackman later shot back. "This is a guy who takes advantage of little people."
The taunt-fest royale between the two men - Icahn is 76, Ackman 46 - proved the most volcanic, and public, blowup yet between the multimillionaires in years.
It all but drowned out debate over the subject they supposedly came on air to discuss: Herbalife, a nutritional supplements company. Ackman has wagered about $1 billion that it is an illicit pyramid scheme whose stock will fall to zero. Traders have whispered for a week that Icahn has taken the opposite bet.
Icahn angrily declined to discuss his position, at one point telling the CNBC anchor, Scott Wapner, "I don't give a damn what you want to know, I came on to talk about what I want to talk about."
But the investor allowed that he considered Herbalife potentially "the mother of all short squeezes," in which the company's shares substantially rise, whacking those who have bet against that stock.
The fight over Herbalife has already publicly pitted Ackman against a friend and rival, Daniel S. Loeb of Third Point, who has taken an 8 percent stake in the company and praised its business prospects.
(Earlier Friday, Ackman said only that Loeb "will lose his entire investment" if he sticks with Herbalife.)
But Friday's bickering unleashed years' worth of insults and legal battling on both sides, driven by a 2004 court fight over a real estate company in which Ackman held a stake. Hit by two investigations and investors demanding the return of their money, the then-fledgling hedge fund manager struck a deal to sell his holdings to Icahn.
The two men disagree over whether Icahn, even then a legend with a track record of more than 50 years, would share profits from a sale of the shares. As the case rumbled on, Ackman rebounded from his woes and set up a successful firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, and scored big with a bet on mall operator General Growth Properties and a battle against the insurer MBIA.
Yet the legal dispute, which was settled in 2011 when Icahn paid Ackman $9 million, continues to eat at the two men. The manager at a top Manhattan restaurant knows never to seat the two near each other, lest glasses and crudites start flying.
There was far less of a buffer Friday.
Icahn sprayed his fury widely, even accusing Wapner, the CNBC anchor, of bullying. But squarely in his sights was Ackman, whom he accused of making a hugely risky bet using other people's money. Herbalife's shares closed Friday at $43.59, nearly 30 percent above their price on the day Ackman announced his bet.
Icahn thanked his younger rival for a compliment, saying, "I appreciate you called me a great investor. I can't say the same about you."
For his part, Ackman again pressed his arguments against Herbalife while declaring Icahn untrustworthy. At one point during the exchange, he muttered, "We are wasting the world's time on this thing."
Wall Street seemed to disagree, with the flying fur commanding attention around the markets. Traders on the New York Stock Exchange floor burst into jeers whenever Icahn threw out an uncensored reference to bovine excrement. (That was at least twice.)
A senior executive at one major hedge fund recalled his colleagues unusually gathering around TV screens in the middle of a busy trading day, riveted by the drama. Whenever someone tried to speak, he recalled, others annoyedly hushed the offender.
And E(AST)Trade's corporate Twitter account posted, "We are breathless over here."
Instead, they were turned to the cable channel CNBC, watching verbal fisticuffs that could rival anything on reality TV, a spat between two hedge fund magnates with a decade-long grudge against each other.
Nominally, the two titans, Carl Icahn and William Ackman, called into CNBC to discuss their contrasting views on Herbalife, a nutritional supplements company. Instead, they slung invective back and forth in a fight that riveted traders and Twitter alike.
"He's like a crybaby in the schoolyard," Icahn thundered in his thick Queens accent. He later declared that his foe was "the quintessential example that if you want a friend on Wall Street, get a dog."
"This is not an honest guy who keeps his word," Ackman later shot back. "This is a guy who takes advantage of little people."
The taunt-fest royale between the two men - Icahn is 76, Ackman 46 - proved the most volcanic, and public, blowup yet between the multimillionaires in years.
It all but drowned out debate over the subject they supposedly came on air to discuss: Herbalife, a nutritional supplements company. Ackman has wagered about $1 billion that it is an illicit pyramid scheme whose stock will fall to zero. Traders have whispered for a week that Icahn has taken the opposite bet.
Icahn angrily declined to discuss his position, at one point telling the CNBC anchor, Scott Wapner, "I don't give a damn what you want to know, I came on to talk about what I want to talk about."
But the investor allowed that he considered Herbalife potentially "the mother of all short squeezes," in which the company's shares substantially rise, whacking those who have bet against that stock.
The fight over Herbalife has already publicly pitted Ackman against a friend and rival, Daniel S. Loeb of Third Point, who has taken an 8 percent stake in the company and praised its business prospects.
(Earlier Friday, Ackman said only that Loeb "will lose his entire investment" if he sticks with Herbalife.)
But Friday's bickering unleashed years' worth of insults and legal battling on both sides, driven by a 2004 court fight over a real estate company in which Ackman held a stake. Hit by two investigations and investors demanding the return of their money, the then-fledgling hedge fund manager struck a deal to sell his holdings to Icahn.
The two men disagree over whether Icahn, even then a legend with a track record of more than 50 years, would share profits from a sale of the shares. As the case rumbled on, Ackman rebounded from his woes and set up a successful firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, and scored big with a bet on mall operator General Growth Properties and a battle against the insurer MBIA.
Yet the legal dispute, which was settled in 2011 when Icahn paid Ackman $9 million, continues to eat at the two men. The manager at a top Manhattan restaurant knows never to seat the two near each other, lest glasses and crudites start flying.
There was far less of a buffer Friday.
Icahn sprayed his fury widely, even accusing Wapner, the CNBC anchor, of bullying. But squarely in his sights was Ackman, whom he accused of making a hugely risky bet using other people's money. Herbalife's shares closed Friday at $43.59, nearly 30 percent above their price on the day Ackman announced his bet.
Icahn thanked his younger rival for a compliment, saying, "I appreciate you called me a great investor. I can't say the same about you."
For his part, Ackman again pressed his arguments against Herbalife while declaring Icahn untrustworthy. At one point during the exchange, he muttered, "We are wasting the world's time on this thing."
Wall Street seemed to disagree, with the flying fur commanding attention around the markets. Traders on the New York Stock Exchange floor burst into jeers whenever Icahn threw out an uncensored reference to bovine excrement. (That was at least twice.)
A senior executive at one major hedge fund recalled his colleagues unusually gathering around TV screens in the middle of a busy trading day, riveted by the drama. Whenever someone tried to speak, he recalled, others annoyedly hushed the offender.
And E(AST)Trade's corporate Twitter account posted, "We are breathless over here."
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