Yesterday, 82-year-old multi-billionaire Carl Icahn announced that his investment firm Icahn Enterprises will sell off nearly all of his Tropicana Entertainment casinos for $1.85B.
And that’s not even his biggest sale this month — last week, Reuters notes, Icahn also sold off auto parts maker Federal-Mogul for $5.4B.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, Icahn Enterprises bought Tropicana Entertainment’s flagship property, the Tropicana Atlantic City hotel and casino, in 2009 for a measly $200m after it was hit hard by the recession and regulators deemed its former owner, William Yung, unqualified to run a casino.
Fast-forward 8 years, and WSJ reports that Tropicana Entertainment is humming along with $898m in revenue for 2017, while Icahn’s capitalizing on a consolidating gambling industry that’s benefiting from more states legalizing casinos.
According to Forbes, Icahn is currently weathering “one of the worst slumps of his career,” with Icahn Enterprises’ losses costing him about $3.6B in net worth since 2015.
Then again, he’s still 43rd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $20.6B. So maybe we’ll save our condolences…