Billionaire Bill Ackman Wants to Become Warren Buffett

By Austin Smith Published Jan 26, 8:25AM EST

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Billionaire Bill Ackman Wants to Become Warren Buffett — © 24/7 Wall St

24/7 Wall St. Key Points:

Emulating Warren Buffett’s approach, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman intends to buy the whole real estate giant Howard Hughes Corp. (NYSE: HHH), in which he currently owns a sizable portion.
Emphasizing a mix of public and private companies for long-term diversified growth, Ackman aims to turn his assets into a conglomerate similar to Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A | BRK-A Price Prediction, BRK.B).
With Ackman using Howard Hughes as a pillar for his imagined investing empire, this action reflects Buffett’s strategy of focusing investments in a small number of very convictional enterprises.
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Transcript:

[00:00:04] Douglas McIntyre: Now your friend, Mr. Ackman, who’s one of the great hedge fund managers

[00:00:10] Lee Jackson: I wish he was my friend.

[00:00:11] Douglas McIntyre: Well, okay. It appears that he’d like to become Warren Buffett. Can you walk through how that, how that crosswalks from Ackman to Buffett?

[00:00:21] Lee Jackson: I thought it was incredible. And you know, Ackman’s been an interesting guy over the years. And he kind of always has done what Buffett did. He’s, he only brought in, in personally, run, you know, 10 to 15 names and, and he’ll just, go totally all in on stuff like Chipotle, which he made, you know, Billions on, I’m sure, but what he wants to, he owns, I think it’s about a third or so of Howard Hughes, which is a gigantic real estate company.

[00:00:50] Lee Jackson: And for our younger viewers, Howard Hughes was an enigmatic guy that lived, died in the mid to late seventies, who was a, an entrepreneur and just a genius. And he was in Vegas. Big and he was looking up. He was an interesting guy, but his company still that bears his name still exists as a real estate firm and what happened wants to do is just buy it all and then be like a small Berkshire because you know, a huge amount of Berkshire Hathaway is private companies, you know, they own. Acme Brick. They own Justin the Boot Guys. They own Dairy Queen. They own Duracell. They own, you know, tons of stuff like that. And I think that’s the kind of the pitch that Ackman wants to use is like a mini Berkshire Hathaway. And by buying all of the stock and controlling it all.

[00:01:47] Douglas McIntyre: I would say that, for those of you who are young, Howard Hughes was the Elon Musk of his era.

[00:01:55] Lee Jackson: He sort of was, yeah.

About the Author Austin Smith →

Austin Smith is a financial publisher with over two decades of experience in the markets. He spent over a decade at The Motley Fool as a senior editor for Fool.com, portfolio advisor for Millionacres, and launched new brands in the personal finance and real estate investing space.

His work has been featured on Fool.com, NPR, CNBC, USA Today, Yahoo Finance, MSN, AOL, Marketwatch, and many other publications. Today he writes for 24/7 Wall St and covers equities, REITs, and ETFs for readers. He is as an advisor to private companies, and co-hosts The AI Investor Podcast.

When not looking for investment opportunities, he can be found skiing, running, or playing soccer with his children. Learn more about me here.