Yesterday Carl Icahn filed a 13D disclosing a ~13% synthetic stake in Herbalife. There are three possible reasons that Carl Icahn might want to own half a billion dollars worth of Herbalife stock:

• as a value investment in a company with strong cash flows and a beaten-up stock price,
• as a toehold in preparation for launching a tender offer to take the company private, or
• to fuck with Bill Ackman.

If you watched Icahn and Ackman square off on CNBC, or read the transcript, or witnessed some sort of dramatic recreation of it, I think you’ll join me in assuming it’s sheer fuck-with-ery. “Cry, Jewish boy, cry!,” he probably said as he signed the 13D. But who knows? He’s up $80+ million as of this morning, so two birds with one stone.

Read more on Dealbreaker.