Billionaire investor Carl Icahn will leave New York for Florida

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, a born New Yorker who has run his business for decades, has moved his office, more than half of his staff and himself to Florida early next year, Thursday said people familiar with this project.

The 83-year-old investor, known for selecting the winners and confronting captains of industry, has become tired of working in New York and has been thinking about moving for several years, people said.

A few months ago, he informed staff of his publicly traded company, Icahn Enterprises, that he was considering closing his Manhattan office in late March 2020 and opening a new office near Miami, where he had a home for a long time, in April 2020.

It will pay staff who transfer a $ 50,000 moving allowance and severance pay to those who choose not to join. Icahn employs about 50 people in New York and more than half, including some of his lawyers and portfolio analysts, will move, officials said.

The news of the move has been reported for the first time by the New York Post.

Icahn did not return e-mail requesting a comment.

Icahn is the latest addition to a series of financial executives, including hedge fund managers Paul Tudor Jones and David Tepper, who leave northeast for Florida, where taxes are lower.

But for Icahn, who has promised to donate at least half of his fortune by signing Giving Pledge of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, the reason for relocating is more of a lifestyle issue than taxes, said someone. One who knows him.

At an age when most people would have retired, Icahn is still working full time and pushing companies to improve their performance. He has long told associates that the work exalted him and that he had no intention of quitting.

While he had stopped investing for external clients eight years ago, his huge personal wealth, estimated at $ 17.5 billion, kept him in the game, putting billions to work in companies like Caesars Entertainment, which had merged with Eldorado Resorts earlier this year. He also complains very strongly of Occidental Petroleum's decision to buy Anadarko, looking for ways to influence society more directly.

But life in New York, where he dines in favorite places like Il Tinello and works late in his Midtown office, was beginning to grab him.

Practicing in a tennis game after work, what he likes to do at home in Florida, is almost impossible in New York. He was already spending more time in Florida during the colder months and was planning to sell his home in New York, a person familiar with his thought said.