ACKMAN’S NEW ACT
Out to raise $4B for new blank-check company
Billionaire Bill Ackman’s Second Act kicks off on Tuesday with plans to raise $4 billion from stock investors to be used on a mystery investment.
The 54-year-old investor on Tuesday will attempt to sell 200 million units of his new blank-check company, Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, at $20 a share.
And sources say he’s signaled potential investment targets ranging from the media empire of ex-NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Brian Chesky’s homerental company Airbnb, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic — to AT&T’s struggling satellite TV provider DirectTV.
“Ackman told me in the last few months that he would like to buy Bloomberg,” one source told The Post.
The source added that he didn’t think it likely that Ackman could reach a deal to invest in the media giant, since Mike Bloomberg, who owns 88 percent of the company valued at $50 billion, could get more from larger investors, like Warren Buffett — if he’s interested in selling at all.
A different source told The Post that Ackman has not revealed his planned investment target to any investor except through boilerplate information to give them some idea of the types of companies that could be on the table.
Reps for Ackman declined to comment.
In addition to the $4 billion he plans to raise by selling shares of his blankcheck company, more formally known as a special-acquisition vehicle, Ackman also plans to invest $1 billion of his own money and has already received commitments for $2 billion from investors of his Pershing Square Capital hedge fund.
If he succeeds in raising the $4 billion on Tuesday, it could help solidify — for now — his return to the top after crashing and burning on his highly public Herbalife bet just three years ago.
After founding his hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital in 2004, Ackman used big bets on a variety of stocks to build the fund into an $11 billion giant in just 10 years. In 2014 alone, Ackman delivered $4.5 billion in profits to Pershing Square investors.
But then the wheels came off, beginning a four-year losing streak that was epitomized by an unsuccessful five-year, $1 billion bet against Herbalife, built on the failed premise that the nutritional shake company would be revealed as a scam.
Since the end of 2017, Ackman has bounced back thanks to his investments in Chipotle, Nike and Starbucks.
The fund returned 58.1 percent in 2019. Ackman followed that up with a $2.6 billion profit in late March, days before the coronavirus pandemic sent the economy into a free fall.
The coronavirus profits, however, prompted criticism that he helped sink stocks by stoking fear, including through a dramatic March 18 TV appearance in which he warned: “Hell is coming.”