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Bill Ackman has told investors he plans to raise tens of billions of dollars through two new funds, including one that has not been previously disclosed, even as he faced questions about whether his increased social media presence is a distraction.
The hedge fund billionaire used a shareholder meeting of Pershing Square Holdings, his listed vehicle, on Thursday to announce a hedge fund product that will specialise in “asymmetric opportunities”. This typically means putting on bets that can benefit from macroeconomic shocks and market volatility.
Ackman also discussed the launch of a separate, closed-end fund in the US, which he had announced and registered with regulators on Wednesday.
“We want this to be the largest closed-end fund listing that has ever been achieved,” Ackman said, according to one of the shareholders. Two people who attended the meeting said the fund, Pershing Square USA, could raise as much as $20bn. A spokesperson for Pershing Square declined to comment.
Investors also posed several questions about Ackman’s recent activism via the social media platform X, which he has used to campaign against several university leaders over their handling of antisemitism on campuses and Business Insider over its coverage of alleged plagiarism by his wife, Neri Oxman.
Ackman earned his reputation on Wall Street as a brash activist investor who took on large US companies but had in recent years pledged to be less vocal and work with executives behind the scenes. Lately he has deployed similar tactics on X, earning a wider audience for his vocal interventions on hot-button issues.
In response to questions about his high-profile social media campaigns, which often include lengthy posts, Ackman told investors he remains fully engaged in the management of Pershing Square.
Ackman, who has personally invested in X and racked up 1.2mn followers on the site, said it had given him an outlet to publicly speak about his political beliefs. That was no different from other outside interests he had long been involved in, including philanthropy, he added.
Investors also asked questions about a discrepancy in fees between Pershing’s European vehicle and the newly registered US one. The latter does not charge a performance fee whereas the London-listed fund charges a 16 per cent annual performance fee on gains.
In response, Ackman pledged to use a portion of the total fees collected by both the US-listed fund and the new hedge fund to pay a rebate to his existing investors that would lower the effective fees they are paying.
Ackman predicted that over time the European investors could end up paying lower fees overall than those in the new US-listed fund.
The decision to launch a closed-end fund was spurred by difficulties Pershing faced in trying to relist the European fund in the US. Ackman said on Thursday that his firm had put in a “Herculean-effort” but was ultimately unable to do so.
“We share the disappointment that Pershing Square is not pursuing redomiciling his existing fund to the United States, but we are optimistic about the future that Pershing Square Holdings has under Bill,” said James Elbaor, the head of Marlton LLC, a Chicago-based hedge fund that is a Pershing Square Holdings shareholder.
While shares in Pershing Square Holdings were up more than 30 per cent last year, the fund still trades at a significant discount to net asset value.
