What Happens To Bill Ackman After This?

Bill Ackman’s firm, Pershing Square may go public. Ackman, who has sold 10% of Pershing to institutional investors, is looking to emulate Pershing’s  European public stock. The motivation behind going public could be to attract more assets under management. The discussion also touches on the potential impact of regulatory changes on hedge funds and Ackman’s evolving role in the finance world. The conversation compares Ackman’s strategy to Warren Buffett’s, suggesting Ackman might shift towards being a more friendly investor.

Transcript:

There is a chance that Pershing will go public.

And the question is, if you own a finance company like that and you’re making billions of dollars and putting them into your pocket every year, why would you go public?

Ackman was asked exactly that question, Doug.

And part of this, he will get a huge amount of assets under management, of course.

Now, he’s already sold 10% of Pershing already, and he sold about a billion 05 to institutional investors, big family offices here and in Europe.

And basically what he’s going to do is he’s going to try to mimic Pershing’s European stock, which is public, and take the kind of shots he’s always taken as a hedge fund operator.

And I think it’ll be highly, highly anticipated simply because the average investor just can’t really be a part of hedge funds.

No.

No.

There is a question right now, as you know, which could affect this IPO being public at all, about whether or not hedge funds should disclose things that they invest in, holdings, the way that mutual funds do and ETFs.

Now, if this happens, does it affect his business?

Well, you know, I think his days of activist investor are probably over.

He took a bath on the Herbalife fight with Icon, and I haven’t heard him in that arena quite as much.

I think he’s trying to be almost more like Musk.

Where he’s getting out there, he’s been really vocal about the Israeli Hamas war.

So I think he’s going to focus more on his positions.

And again, hedge funds do have to disclose, you know, every 90 days what they do have or what they purchased and sold.

Right.

I’m just saying that they like to keep it secret for as long as they can.

Let’s say he does this and works.

It works out.

Does this become a trend?

You mean guys like Einhorn and, you know, like that going public?

I don’t think so.

I think it could be a one-off because I think a lot of them, you know, they don’t want to be the CEO of a publicly held company, which is what Ackman will become, ostensibly.

So, I mean, maybe it could.

I guess it will depend on the success.

But I think the demand will be huge because he’s done well.

I mean, of course, he’s had a few blow-ups, but he’s been – a tremendous investor over the last 15, 20 years.

I don’t want to overstate this comparison at all, but does he become a little bit more like Warren Buffett?

I think that’s possible because, again, I don’t think he’s – I mean, he’s, you know, he holds things a long time.

He’s held Chipotle for a long time and, you know, had a big victory there.

So, yeah, I think he could edge more like that because, again, he doesn’t want to be Mr. Shoot from the hip hedge fund guy when he’s trying to attract a lot of not just institutional money, but high net worth money from people that aren’t in family offices.

The other thing about Buffett is that Buffett is considered a friendly investor.

That hasn’t always been true here.

So does it tend to nudge him in the direction of, instead of being the equivalent of sort of a raider like some of the old guys were in the 70s and 80s, does it nudge him a little bit more towards being considered friendly?

I think it will.

And, you know, Ackman’s extremely good.

And Pershing Square has always had a high profile, but he’s good in public and he’s on camera a lot.

So, yeah, I think he will probably go a little bit more to the maybe not as people friendly or shareholder friendly as Buffett.

But I think he will edge that way.