Bill Ackman
Bill Ackman founded Pershing Square Capital Management in 2004 after his first fund, Gotham Partners, wound down following a series of high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful activist campaigns. Born in 1966 and raised in Chappaqua, New York, Ackman graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude in 1988 and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1992. He is known as one of the most vocal and media-savvy investors in the world, regularly publishing detailed investment theses and engaging publicly in debates about his positions.
Pershing Square operates with an unusually concentrated portfolio — typically holding fewer than 15 positions — and takes large, often controlling stakes in publicly traded companies with the goal of influencing management or strategy. The fund has delivered exceptional long-term returns, including the legendary COVID hedge in early 2020 that turned a $27M premium into $2.6B in profit over a matter of weeks. Ackman launched Pershing Square USA (PSUS) in 2024 as a closed-end fund, giving retail investors direct access to his strategy.
We look for simple, predictable, free-cash-flow-generative businesses with dominant market positions, where we can invest at a discount to intrinsic value and where we can be an active catalyst for change.
— Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital Management