A lawsuit filed in the Delaware Chancery Court on September 21, 2026, alleges that Icahn Enterprises and several hedge funds engaged in illegal collusion. The complaint claims these parties coordinated their appraisal arbitrage strategies regarding the acquisition of Endeavor Group Holdings by Silver Lake.
Silver Lake finalized the acquisition of Endeavor on March 24, 2025, at a price of $27.50 per share. This transaction represented a 55% premium over the unaffected trading price, bringing the total deal value to approximately $13 billion.
In 2025, about 150 million Endeavor shares were submitted for appraisal in the Delaware Chancery Court, with a total value of roughly $4.1 billion. This event is cited as the largest appraisal campaign in the history of the state.
The lawsuit asserts that the firms acted collectively to increase leverage against the deal rather than pursuing appraisal rights independently. Icahn Enterprises and Handelsbanken Fonder AB previously secured lead-plaintiff status in a separate class action in September 2025.
