Why Icahn Enterprises stock rose on a market down Tuesday

Veteran activist investor Carl Icahn’s recent involvement in the airline industry deepened on Tuesday. His Icahn Enterprises (IEP 1.51%) Successfully appointed two officers. jet blue‘S (JBLU 0.72%) Board of Directors. The news was encouraging enough to send Icahn Enterprises’ stock into positive territory. It closed 1.5% higher, compared to a 0.6% decline. S&P 500 index.

Veteran activist investor joins JetBlue.

After market hours Friday, JetBlue announced both commitments in a press release. Jesse Lynn, general counsel for Icahn Enterprises, and Steven Miller, portfolio manager for an Icahn Capital subsidiary, will initially serve as non-voting observers on JetBlue’s board of directors. They will become full voting members after the airline’s annual general meeting this spring.

Known as a cunning and sometimes very successful activist investor, Icahn and his army are acting quickly with JetBlue. News of the board appointments comes just three days after Icahn released a regulatory filing showing he had amassed a stake of less than 10% of the airline.

In the filing, Icahn wrote that he was considering placing a colleague on JetBlue’s board, as well as buying more stock in the company.

Interesting timing for the entry of new shareholders.

Strategically, JetBlue is exhibiting a holding pattern of sorts. Ambitious proposal to acquire a discount airline Spirit Airlines It was blocked by the Justice Department and is currently on appeal. Spirit also has a new CEO, Joanna Geraghty, who officially started the job last week.