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Description of Business
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2020
Description of Business  
Description of Business

1. Description of Business

Overview

Icahn Enterprises L.P. (“Icahn Enterprises”) is a master limited partnership formed in Delaware on February 17, 1987. Icahn Enterprises Holdings L.P. (“Icahn Enterprises Holdings”) is a limited partnership formed in Delaware on February 17, 1987. References to “we,” “our” or “us” herein include both Icahn Enterprises and Icahn Enterprises Holdings and their subsidiaries, unless the context otherwise requires.

Icahn Enterprises owns a 99% limited partner interest in Icahn Enterprises Holdings. Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc. (“Icahn Enterprises GP”), which is owned and controlled by Mr. Carl C. Icahn, owns a 1% general partner interest in each of Icahn Enterprises and Icahn Enterprises Holdings as of December 31, 2020. Icahn Enterprises Holdings and its subsidiaries own substantially all of our assets and liabilities and conduct substantially all of our operations. Therefore, the financial results of Icahn Enterprises and Icahn Enterprises Holdings are substantially the same, with differences relating primarily to the allocation of the general partner interest, which is reflected as an aggregate 1.99% general partner interest in the financial statements of Icahn Enterprises. In addition to the above, Mr. Icahn and his affiliates owned approximately 92% of Icahn Enterprises’ outstanding depositary units as of December 31, 2020.

Description of Operating Businesses

We are a diversified holding company owning subsidiaries currently engaged in the following continuing operating businesses: Investment, Energy, Automotive, Food Packaging, Metals, Real Estate, Home Fashion and, as of December 2020, Pharma. We also report the results of our Holding Company, which includes the results of certain subsidiaries of Icahn Enterprises and Icahn Enterprises Holdings (unless otherwise noted), and investment activity and expenses associated with our Holding Company. Our historical results also report the results of our Mining segment, until sold on August 1, 2019, and our Railcar segment through the date we sold our last remaining railcars on lease, which occurred in the third quarter of 2018. See Note 13, “Segment and Geographic Reporting,” for a reconciliation of each of our reporting segment’s results of operations to our consolidated results. Certain additional information with respect to our segments are discussed below.

Investment

Our Investment segment is comprised of various private investment funds (“Investment Funds”) in which we have general partner interests and through which we invest our proprietary capital. We, certain of Mr. Icahn’s wholly-owned affiliates and Brett Icahn, son of Mr. Icahn, are the only investors in the Investment Funds. As general partner, we provide investment advisory and certain administrative and back office services to the Investment Funds but do not provide such services to any other entities, individuals or accounts. Interests in the Investment Funds are not offered to outside investors. We had interests in the Investment Funds with a fair market value of approximately $4.3 billion and $4.3 billion as of December 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Energy

We conduct our Energy segment through our majority owned subsidiary, CVR Energy, Inc. (“CVR Energy”). CVR Energy is a diversified holding company primarily engaged in the petroleum refining and nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing businesses through its holdings in CVR Refining, LP (“CVR Refining”) and CVR Partners, LP (“CVR Partners”), respectively. CVR Refining is an independent petroleum refiner and marketer of high value transportation fuels. CVR Partners produces and markets nitrogen fertilizers in the form of urea ammonium nitrate and ammonia. CVR Energy has a general partner interest in each of CVR Refining and CVR Partners. In addition, CVR Energy is the sole limited partner of CVR Refining and owns 36% of the outstanding common units of CVR Partners as of December 31, 2020. As of December 31, 2020, we owned approximately 71% of the total outstanding common stock of CVR Energy.

On January 29, 2019, CVR Energy, pursuant to the exercise of its right to purchase all of the issued and outstanding common units in CVR Refining, purchased the remaining common units of CVR Refining not already owned by CVR

Energy, including the purchase of CVR Refining common units owned directly by us. Prior to this, CVR Energy owned approximately 81% of the common units of CVR Refining and we directly owned approximately 4% of the common units of CVR Refining. As a result of exercising its purchase right, as of January 29, 2019, CVR Energy owns all of the common units of CVR Refining and we no longer have any direct ownership in CVR Refining. In addition, the common units of CVR Refining have subsequently ceased to be publicly traded or listed on the New York Stock Exchange or any other national securities exchange. The remaining common units of CVR Refining acquired in this transaction were purchased for $241 million, excluding the amount paid by CVR Energy to us for the common units of CVR Refining directly owned by us.

Prior to this, on August 1, 2018, CVR Energy completed an exchange offer whereby CVR Refining’s public unitholders tendered a total of 21,625,106 common units of CVR Refining in exchange for 13,699,549 shares of CVR Energy common stock. In connection with this transaction, our equity attributable to Icahn Enterprises and Icahn Enterprises Holdings increased by $99 million.

Automotive

We conduct our Automotive segment through our wholly-owned subsidiary, Icahn Automotive Group LLC (“Icahn Automotive”). Icahn Automotive is engaged in the retail and wholesale distribution of automotive parts in the aftermarket (“aftermarket parts”) as well as providing automotive repair and maintenance services (“automotive services”) to its customers. Icahn Automotive’s aftermarket parts and automotive services businesses serve different customer channels and have distinct strategies, opportunities and requirements and therefore are operated as two independent operating companies, each with its own Chief Executive Officer and management teams, and both of which are supported by a central shared service group. Our Automotive segment also includes our separate equity method investment in 767 Auto Leasing LLC (“767 Leasing”), a joint venture created by us to purchase vehicles for lease, as described further in Note 3, “Related Party Transactions.” Our investment in 767 Leasing is included as a component of our Automotive segment due to the nature of the joint venture activities.

Food Packaging

We conduct our Food Packaging segment through our majority owned subsidiary, Viskase Companies, Inc. (“Viskase”). Viskase is a producer of cellulosic, fibrous and plastic casings used to prepare and package processed meat products.

In October 2020, Viskase completed an equity private placement whereby we acquired an additional 50,000,000 shares of Viskase common stock for $100 million. In connection with this transaction, our ownership of Viskase increased from approximately 79% to 89%.

Prior to this, during January 2018, Viskase received $50 million in connection with its common stock rights offering. In connection with this rights offering, we fully exercised our subscription rights under our basic and over subscription privileges to purchase additional shares of Viskase common stock, thereby increasing our ownership of Viskase from 75% to 79%, for an aggregate additional investment of $44 million.

Metals

We conduct our Metals segment through our indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, PSC Metals, LLC (“PSC Metals”). PSC Metals is principally engaged in the business of collecting, processing and selling ferrous and non-ferrous metals, as well as the processing and distribution of steel pipe and plate products. PSC Metals collects industrial and obsolete scrap metal, processes it into reusable forms and supplies the recycled metals to its customers.

Real Estate

Our Real Estate segment consists primarily of investment properties, the development and sale of single-family homes and the management of a country club.

During 2018, our Real Estate segment sold two commercial rental properties for aggregate proceeds of $179 million, resulting in aggregate pretax gain on disposition of assets of $89 million.

Home Fashion

We conduct our Home Fashion segment through our wholly-owned subsidiary, WestPoint Home LLC (“WPH”). WPH’s business consists of manufacturing, sourcing, marketing, distributing and selling home fashion consumer products.

Pharma

We conduct our Pharma segment through our wholly owned subsidiary, Vivus, Inc. (“Vivus”). We acquired all of the outstanding commons stock of Vivus in December 2020 upon its emergence from bankruptcy. Vivus is a specialty pharmaceutical company with two approved therapies and one product candidate in active clinical development.

Prior to Vivus’ emergence from bankruptcy, we held an investment in Vivus’ convertible corporate debt securities with a fair value of $183 million. In addition to the fair value of the convertible corporate debt securities, our total consideration transferred included an exit financing facility of $81 million and a contingent liability of $3 million. The $81 million exit financing facility replaced an existing $63 million term loan previously held by us.

Mining

We conducted our Mining segment through our majority owned subsidiary, Ferrous Resources Ltd. (“Ferrous Resources”). Ferrous Resources acquired certain rights to iron ore mineral resources in Brazil and develops mining operations and related infrastructure to produce and sell iron ore products to the global steel industry. Prior to the sale of Ferrous Resources, as discussed below, we owned approximately 77% of its total outstanding common stock.

On December 5, 2018, we announced a definitive agreement to sell Ferrous Resources for total consideration of $550 million (including repaid indebtedness). On August 1, 2019, we closed on the sale of Ferrous Resources. Our proportionate share of the cash proceeds from the sale, net of adjustments, was $463 million. As a result of the sale of Ferrous Resources, our Mining segment recorded a pretax gain on disposition of assets of $252 million in 2019. Subsequent to the sale, we no longer operate an active Mining segment.

Railcar

We conducted our Railcar segment through our wholly-owned subsidiary, American Railcar Leasing, LLC (“ARL”). ARL operated a leasing business consisting of purchased railcars leased to third parties under operating leases.

During 2017, we sold ARL and a majority of its railcar lease fleet. During 2018, we sold all remaining railcars of ARL not previously sold for additional cash consideration of $17 million. In connection with these transactions, we recorded a pretax gain on disposition of assets of $5 million in 2018. As a result of the sale of all remaining railcars during 2018, our business no longer includes an active Railcar segment.

Description of Discontinued Operating Businesses

We also report discontinued operations previously reported in our Automotive and Railcar segments and former Gaming segment. In addition to below, see Note 14, “Discontinued Operations,” for additional information with respect to our discontinued operating businesses.

Automotive

Our discontinued Automotive operations consists of our previously wholly-owned subsidiary, Federal-Mogul LLC (“Federal-Mogul”). On October 1, 2018, we closed on the previously announced sale of Federal-Mogul to Tenneco Inc. (“Tenneco”). In connection with the sale, we received $800 million in cash and approximately 29.5 million shares of

Tenneco common stock, of which approximately 23.8 million shares were non-voting shares convertible into voting shares if and when sold. The remaining approximately 5.7 million voting shares received by us represented approximately 9.9% of the aggregate voting interest in Tenneco. There were restrictions on how many shares of Tenneco common stock that could be sold by us within the first 150 days after the closing of the sale. The voting and non-voting shares of Tenneco common stock have the same economic value. As of October 1, 2018, the approximately 29.5 million voting and non-voting shares of Tenneco common stock had a fair market value of approximately $1.2 billion, which our Holding Company will hold and record as a Level 1 investment measured at fair value on a recurring basis. In addition, Federal-Mogul’s outstanding debt was assumed by Tenneco.

As a result of the sale of Federal-Mogul, we recorded a pretax gain on sale of discontinued operations attributable to Icahn Enterprises of $251 million in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Gaming

Our discontinued Gaming operations consists of our previous majority ownership in Tropicana Entertainment Inc. (“Tropicana”). On October 1, 2018, Tropicana closed on the previously announced real estate sales and merger transaction for aggregate cash consideration, net of adjustments, of approximately $1.8 billion. The transaction did not include Tropicana Aruba Resort and Casino, which was retained by us and is now reported within our Real Estate segment. Our proportionate share of the cash proceeds, net of adjustments, was approximately $1.5 billion.

As a result of the sale of Tropicana, we recorded a pretax gain on sale of discontinued operations attributable to Icahn Enterprises of $779 million in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Railcar

Our discontinued Railcar operations consists of our previous majority ownership in American Railcar Industries, Inc. (“ARI”). On December 5, 2018, we closed on the previously announced sale of ARI for aggregate cash consideration of $831 million.

As a result of the sale of ARI, we recorded a pretax gain on sale of discontinued operations attributable to Icahn Enterprises of $400 million in the fourth quarter of 2018.