ICAHN SAYS HE IS TARGET OF SEC INVESTIGATION Corporate raider Carl Icahn acknowledged that he is one of the targets of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into possible violations of securities laws. Icahn, who heads and controls Trans World Airlines Inc <TWA>, made the acknowledgement in a filing TWA was required to make with the SEC disclosing its 14.8 pct stake in USAir Group. The SEC issued a formal order launching the private investigation on Nov 12, 1986, Icahn said in the SEC filing. The order empowers SEC investigators to try to find out whether any persons, including Icahn, violated securities laws and related rules, Icahn said. Specifically, the probe is examining the acquisition and subsequent sale of more than five pct of the stock of certain unspecified companies, he said. Federal law requires individuals or groups of individuals who have made shareholder agreements, to disclose stakes in companies of at least five pct within 10 days. Icahn has acknowledged that he has been subpoenaed in connection with SEC probes, but this is the first time he has disclosed that he is among those being investigated. By making the disclosure in a filing with the SEC, which is obviously already aware of its own probe, Icahn was also alerting current and potential shareholders of TWA. It is not uncommon for companies which are aware that they or their officers are the targets of government probes to acknowledge the existence of the otherwise secret investigations to fulfill their legal disclosure requirements to their shareholders. Icahn said the SEC is looking into whether he and others whom he did not name violated securities laws by acquiring and selling more than five pct of a company's stock. SEC investigations into those kinds of possible securities law violations have been spawned by the agency's widening probe into the Wall Street insider trading scandal, according to published reports. Making late filings of 13D forms, which disclose the amount of stock over five pct an investor has in a company, or making no filing at all could indicate a scheme to "warehouse" shares of stock. In a warehousing scheme, a group of investors acting in concert would each amass stock in the company without disclosing that they have an agreement among them. By failing to disclose that they are acting together the market is unware of the amount of stock of a company that is controlled by a group acting in concert. Last year, the SEC charged members of the wealthy Belzberg family of Canada with taking part in a warehousing scheme while it was accumulating stock in Ashland Oil Inc.