Bill Ackman

William Albert Ackman (born May 11, 1966) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager who is the founder and chief executive officer of Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund management company.

His investment approach has made him an activist investor.

, Ackman's net worth was estimated at $4 billion by Forbes.

Ackman was raised in Chappaqua, New York, the son of Ronnie I. (née Posner) and Lawrence David Ackman, the former chairman of a New York real estate financing firm, Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group.

He is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent.

In 1988, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude in social studies from Harvard College.

His thesis was titled Scaling the Ivy Wall: The Jewish and Asian American Experience in Harvard Admissions. In 1992, he received a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School.

In 1992, Ackman founded the investment firm Gotham Partners with fellow Harvard graduate David P. Berkowitz.

The firm made small investments in public companies.

In 1995, Ackman partnered with the insurance and real estate firm Leucadia National to bid for Rockefeller Center.

Although they did not win the deal, the bid generated interest in Gotham from investors: three years later, Gotham had $500 million in assets under management (AUM).

By 2002, Gotham had become entrenched in litigation with various external shareholders who also owned an interest in the companies in which Gotham invested.

In 2002, Ackman researched MBIA in order to challenge Standard & Poor's AAA rating of its bonds.

He was charged fees for copying 725,000 pages of statements regarding the financial services company as part of his law firm's compliance with a subpoena.

Ackman called for a division between MBIA's structured finance business and its municipal bond insurance business.

He argued that MBIA was legally restricted from trading billions of dollars of credit default swap (CDS) protection that MBIA had sold against various mortgage-backed collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), and was using a second corporation, LaCrosse Financial Products, which MBIA described as an "orphaned transformer".

In 2003, a feud developed between Ackman and Carl Icahn over a deal involving Hallwood Realty.

They agreed to a "shmuck insurance" arrangement, under which, if Icahn were to sell the shares within 3 years and made a profit of 10% or more, he and Ackman would split the proceeds.

Icahn paid $80 per share.

In April 2004, HRPT Property Trust acquired Hallwood, paying $136.16 per share.

Under the terms of the contract, Icahn owed Ackman and his investors about $4.5 million.

Icahn refused to pay.

Ackman sued.

Eight years later, Icahn was forced to pay the $4.5 million plus 9% interest per year, by court order.

In 2004, with $54 million from his personal funds and from his former business partner Leucadia National, Ackman started Pershing Square Capital Management.

Ackman bought credit default swaps against MBIA corporate debt and sold them for a large profit during the financial crisis of 2007–2008.

He reported covering his short position on MBIA on January 16, 2009, according to the 13D filed with the SEC.

In 2010 Pershing started buying J. C. Penney shares, paying an average of $22 for 39 million shares or 18% of J.C. Penney's stock.

In December 2012, Ackman issued a research report that criticized Herbalife's multi-level marketing business model, calling it a pyramid scheme.

Ackman disclosed that his hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, sold short the company's shares directly (not with derivatives) starting in May 2012, causing Herbalife's stock price to drop.

A few months after Ackman's initial comments, billionaire investor Carl Icahn challenged Ackman's comment in a public spat on national TV.

Shortly thereafter, Icahn bought shares of Herbalife International (HLF).

As Icahn continued to buy up HLF shares, the stock price continued to show strength.

In August 2013, the two-year campaign to transform the department store came to an abrupt end when Ackman stepped down from the board following a disagreement with fellow board members.

In January 2015, LCH Investments named Ackman one of the world's top 20 hedge fund managers after Pershing Square delivered $4.5 billion in net gains for investors in 2014, bringing the fund's lifetime gains to $11.6 billion since its launch in 2004 through year-end 2014.

On April 27, 2016, Ackman, along with Valeant Pharmaceuticals' outgoing CEO, J. Michael Pearson, and the company's former interim CEO, Howard Schiller, testified before the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging.

The testifying panel answered questions related to the committee's concerns about repercussions to patients and the health care system posed by Valeant's business model and controversial pricing practices.

Ackman opened his testimony saying, "As a shareholder of Valeant, I recognize my investment was an… endorsement of Valeant's strategy."

Ackman sold his remaining 27.2 million share position in Valeant to the investment bank Jefferies for about $300 million in March 2017.

It has been estimated that the total cost of the position, including direct stock purchases and 9.1 million shares that were underlying stock options traded with Nomura Global Financial Products, was $4.6 billion, leading to a substantial loss.