Shares of Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) gained on Monday after the world’s largest offshore rig contractor revealed that billionaire investor, Carl Icahn has acquired a 1.56 percent stake in the company and is considering to expand his holding in the company.
According to statement available on Transocean’s website, Icahn is seeking a regulatory approval to purchase shares worth more than $682.1 million. (Carl Icahn is seeking to acquire at least another 3.4 percent of the company based on the Jan. 11 closing share price of $54.09).
In case he gets an approval then cahn will become one of the largest shareholders with just over 5 percent stake of the company.
According to a data provided by Thomson Reuters, as of October 15, 2012, Transocean’s biggest shareholder was Capital World Investors, holding 5.12 percent share. Capital World Investors is a unit of The Capital Group Companies Inc.
Its second biggest shareholder is Franklin Resources with $524.6 million of share, showed a data provided by the Bloomberg.
Icahn’s move to acquire stake in the Company comes just two weeks after Transocean agreed to settle its dispute with the U.S. government by paying $1.14 billion in penalty linked to BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill back in 2010. Following the spill, Transocean lost more half of the market capitalization t in subsequent period, and till date shares are still below 40% than its pre-spill level.
In an email-note, Michael Romer, an equity analyst at Bank Sarasin & Cie AG in Basel, wrote, “The occurrence of the famous billionaire activist investor Icahn is likely to be a game changer for the firm,” according to Bloomberg.
Carl Icahn is a renowned value investor. Icahn’s investment philosophy is to look out for those companies that are underperforming but have the potential to improve. Just last year, Icahn purchased huge stakes and supported the demand for new board members at energy companies Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) and CVR Energy Inc. (NYSE: CVI).
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