When you think of individuals such Carl Icahn, Ronald O. Perelman and Nelson Peltz, you might think of their knack for business acumen, successful fund management and even philanthropy. However, there is one aspect of these personalities’ exploits that might get overshadowed by the overarching themes of their achievements – a specialty in turning businesses around.  

The reason it is a specialty is because not everyone has the means or frankly, the guts, to put plans in place to take a failing company and turn it around. 

Last week’s foray into the world of executives and portfolio managers at activist fund 180 Degree Capital Corp. (NASDAQ:TURN), Kevin Rendino (CEO) and Daniel Wolfe (President), touched on the reasons why companies consider and ultimately agree to shift the innards of their businesses around. In the end, it really comes down to making them attractive enough for investors to put their money into. We’d suggest that you catch up with that column after reading what we have lined up today.

So, speaking of turnaround specialists, we wanted to bring attention to a few famous ones who excelled at buying or taking a stake in underperforming or struggling companies to help them achieve profitability in various ways. 

We’ll touch upon notable investments made by the turnaround specialist investors above.