Carl Icahn Just Got Out Of A Tight Spot

Spain's Repsol has bought Canada's Talisman Energy for $13 billion. That's $8 per share, a stock price Talisman hasn't seen since early October.

This is all great news for Carl Icahn's Icahn Enterprises (IEP), the company's largest shareholder. He announced a 6% stake in the stock in October of last year, and since then upped his holdings to over 7%, over 76 million shares.

During that entire time Talisman's stock got absolutely demolished, falling 71%. News of the sale gave it a slight pop, but not nearly enough to erase all those losses. It's still down just under 60% for the period.

The second largest holder of the stock, it's worth noting, is Point72 Asset Management - Steve Cohen's family office.

Here's what the stock has looked like since Icahn bought it:

Woof.

Unfortunately for IEP, Talisman isn't the only energy stock in its portfolio - and as such, it's not the only stock that's getting crushed.

In its third quarter report, IEP admitted that these holdings blew a $270 million hole in its balance sheet, and since the price of oil has declined losses have only gotten worse.

So despite Icahn's very public wins, like eBay and Apple, IEP's stock is down 16% year to date.