Icahn Offers CVR Energy Little Value

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Carl Icahn's newly unveiled $30 a share bid for CVR Energy(CVI) is dusting off the playbook he used when making a disastrous $12.6 billion bid for Clorox(CLX) in 2011.

That's because after taking a 14.5% stake in CVR Energy, Icahn may be holding out a flimsy takeover bid for the refining and nitrogen fertilizer company to drum up non-existent bidding interest from a competitor. That would mirror Icahn's unsuccessful tender offer for the cleaning products giant, which ended in September without shareholder support or competing bids.

Carl Icahn

Icahn's playing both bidder and M&A banker by recommending a few companies that could be acquirers of CVR Energy at a higher price than his $30 a share offer. Meanwhile, a clause in the offer signals that the investment mogul is trying to get shareholders to approve a thin takeover bid even if he's unable to drum up near-term strategic interest.

Icahn is bidding $30 a share in cash for all of CVR Energy's outstanding shares and is offering a "contingent value right" that will give shareholders a cash payment equal in value to a possible higher priced takeover bid. He also nominated a slate of nine hostile directors for the company's board to remove the poison pill that CVR Energy enacted when Icahn announced his large share position earlier in the year.

"We are offering shareholders a minimum of $30 per share now, a new board with a shareholder mandate to put the Company up for sale, and the upside from a sale of the Company in the form of the Contingent Value Right. This is a win-win-win for shareholders," said Icahn in a letter to CVR Energy's board. He pointed to Western Refining(WNR) , HollyFrontier(HFC) , Valero(VLO) , Marathon Petroleum(MPC) and ConocoPhillips(COP) as potential acquirers, which he will initiate discussions with "during the next several weeks."

But there's a catch. That contingent value right would expire nine months from a tender, meaning that if CVR Energy shareholders were to tender their shares to Icahn for $30 and two years down the line, Icahn were to sell the company for say $50 a share, investors would see none of the gain.