Market Folly - Latest Comments in Bill Ackman's Pershing Square: Profile & Biography

Re: Bill Ackman's Pershing Square: Profile & Biography

marketfolly — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:20:17 -0000

very true re: Leucadia. Its interesting how Ackman so easily garners big name investors. Dan Loeb of Third Point invested in PS IV as well and he was part of the force that got Ackman to change the structure of the fund due to the massive losses.

It doesn't get much better than Buffett in Klarman in terms of adding credibility. I'd argue though that Ackman's investors in his initial Gotham fund (listed above in the article) carry a lot of weight as well... at least in hedge fund land. Michael Steinhardt pioneered and carried through the modern version of a hedge fund.

Re: Bill Ackman's Pershing Square: Profile & Biography

Jeremy — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:18:58 -0000

Leucadia (LUK) also invested (and lost) with Pershing IV. That's as big of an endorsement as Warren Buffett in my opinion (who also collaborated with Cumming and Steinberg once upon a time via Berkadia). It is hard to trust anything in the investment world, but I think this is as close to a stamp of approval as you can get. I wouldn't even look at what Ackman is doing if it wasn't for LUK. No offense to Ackman, of course. Buffett and Munger, Pabrai, Klarman, and Cumming and Steinberg seem trustable. Anyone else to add to this list?

Disclosure: Long LUK (and losing).

Re: Bill Ackman's Pershing Square: Profile & Biography

marketfolly — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:53:54 -0000

Yea I prefer concentrated funds as well. But your point about blowups is very prudent as you seem to see more and more of that these days. Almost as if they put too much into one idea and it goes south, or they get too confident, etc.

What's interesting is that while they do have such a large weighting in Target, they only have a few short positions. It always makes me wonder how they're not so skewed to the long side. But, then I think about their credit default swap exposure.

Thanks for the kind words, very much appreciated and thanks for reading!

Re: Bill Ackman's Pershing Square: Profile & Biography

marketfolly — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:44:09 -0000

haha I'll let you know if I ever find such information!

Re: Bill Ackman's Pershing Square: Profile & Biography

Mr. Tuxedo — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:50:49 -0000

I like these guys with concentrated picks.
It all goes well, until it doesn't. (I'm reminded of the LTCM chaps recent fall).
Active management seems to work better long term because the good ones seem to know how to actively use uncorrelated counter weight positions to help hedge against those big sector stock picks like Target.
I really like the edit feature.
Thanks for all your efforts, this is one of my favourite sites.

Re: Bill Ackman's Pershing Square: Profile & Biography

ArtemDmytrenko — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:13:18 -0000

heh.. maybe you can post some trading models of hedge funds for example.. its could be great!