Carl Icahn and Dan Loeb see eye-to-eye on lots of things, but malls aren’t among them. While Danny Boy has only the fondest memories of a ‘70s California mallrat childhood, Icahn never had much use for the retail emporia other than to make money on their downfall. And boy, has this beautiful trade proven worth its weight in all the gold you could store in all of the empty Spencer’s Gifts across the land. Indeed, it’s been absolutely the best part of a pretty awesome global pandemic for good old Uncle Carl.
Mr. Icahn… has made $1.3 billion on the trade…. “We periodically do shorts, and this is one of the best that I’ve ever seen,” Mr. Icahn said in an interview last week….
And the billion-dollar fun? Oh, my friends, it’s just getting started.
“The malls were way overbuilt to begin with,” Mr. Icahn said, “but additionally, the real problem was that malls and physical retail were constantly losing ground to online shopping.” He has kept his trade, believing that certain shopping malls could be in far worse trouble.
‘The Big Short 2.0’: How Hedge Funds Profited Off the Pains of Malls [NYT]