Icahn thins Lionsgate stake

The Carl Icahn era at Lionsgate is drawing to a quiet end, with the billionaire investor reducing his holding to about 1%. Icahn sold a block of nearly 3 million shares Wednesday, an informed source said. Last week Lionsgate completed its offering of 19.2 million shares of his stock at $7 a share, which had cut his stake to 3.1%. Lionsgate and Icahn had no comment about Wednesday's sale. The stock, which was up 4 to $7.05 in mid-session Thursday, has generated an average daily volume of 589,000 shares during the past three months. The offering completed an Aug. 30 settlement with Icahn and his son Brett Icahn. The Icahns and mini-major had announced that they were ending three years of battling in an agreement to sell the Icahn's 33% stake in the company at $7 a share via a series of deals totaling about $309 million. The settlement called for Lionsgate to buy back 11 million shares from Icahn at $7 a share and for Lionsgate director Mark H. Rachesky to purchase an additional 11 million shares from Icahn at $7 per share. Contact Dave McNary at dave.mcnary@variety.com