BOSTON (Reuters) - Carl Icahn, the octogenarian investor whose stock investments still create a buzz on Wall Street nearly 50 years after he first got into the business, made a new bet on Allergan (NYSE:AGN_pa), a new filing shows.
Icahn who invests his personal fortune estimated by Forbes to be roughly $17 billion largely kept his portfolio unchanged, reporting no change on his investments in Cheniere Energy, Freeport-McMoRan and Herbalife (NYSE:HLF) during the second quarter.
But he did make one significant addition when he bought 3.4 million shares of drugmaker Allergan, valued at $785.7 million.
Icahn kept his holding in Hertz Global Holdings Inc mostly unchanged, but the share count was lower after the company issued a 5-for-1 reverse stock split on the last trading day of the second quarter.
Icahn like other investors on Monday filed a so-called 13-F filing that shows what U.S. stocks he owned at the end of the second quarter.
He made smaller adjustments to his biggest holdings including a 2 percent hike in AIG, bringing his ownership to 45.6 million shares. PayPal Holdings, was cut by 10 percent to 33.9 million shares, the filing shows.
Icahn, like some other billionaire investors, has made big bets on energy companies, betting on a recovery that has been spotty so far.
Allergan's stock price dropped 14 percent during the second quarter after Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) walked away from a planned merger, but some investors expect that Allergan will tie up with another company, suggesting that the stock price will rebound.
(Corrects headline, first and third paragraphs to show no change in Hertz Global Holdings, adds that cut in shares was related to reverse stock split)