Shares of Icahn Enterprises, the agency led by the billionaire financier Carl C. Icahn, fell as a lot as 30 p.c on Friday after the saber-rattling investor, below strain from a brief vendor, stated his agency would halve its quarterly dividend and refocus on the model of activist investing that introduced him his fame and fortune.

The announcement comes three months after Hindenburg Research, the brief vendor, released a report questioning the financials of Icahn Enterprises, and whether or not it had the wherewithal to proceed paying a dividend to shareholders. Hindenburg, led by Nathan Anderson, accused Mr. Icahn’s agency of working “Ponzi-like economic structures.” Short sellers revenue when inventory costs fall.

The plunging inventory value of Icahn Enterprises is the newest setback for the 87-year-old investor who, for greater than 4 many years, has taken on publicly traded firms and pressured their chief executives to make modifications.

Including the drop on Friday, shares of Mr. Icahn’s agency are down roughly 50 p.c since Hindenburg launched its report on May 2.

In the announcement, made as a part of the agency’s second-quarter earnings report, Mr. Icahn referred to as the Hindenburg report “misleading and self-serving.” But he issued a mea culpa in a separate letter to buyers, saying that though he had delivered index-beating long-term positive factors by activist investing, his personal brief bets in opposition to the inventory market weighed on his agency’s returns.

“While we made money on the long side through our activism efforts, our returns have been overwhelmed by our overly bearish view of the market and related oversized short (hedge) positions,” he wrote, noting that he has unwound most of his so-called hedges, or bets in opposition to a rising inventory market.

The agency stated that its internet losses for the second quarter of 2023 jumped to $269 million on $2.5 billion of income in contrast with $128 million in losses on $3.5 billion of income within the second quarter of 2022.

Mr. Icahn additionally stated that the board would proceed to evaluate its plans for a dividend every quarter based mostly on “current economic conditions and business performance,” amongst different elements.

Mr. Anderson took a victory lap on Friday morning. In a put up on X, the social media website previously generally known as Twitter, he famous his May 2 prediction that “Icahn Enterprises will eventually cut or eliminate its dividend entirely, barring a miracle turnaround in investment performance.”

He stated he would proceed to carry his so-called brief wager in opposition to the inventory.

Still Mr. Icahn has not shied away from his personal fights in the previous couple of months. Most lately, he secured a victory in opposition to the administration of the gene-sequencing firm Illumina. After he agitated for change on the firm, shareholders voted in May in favor of including an Icahn board member and voted to take away the Illumina chairman. In June, Illumina’s chief govt resigned.