Bill Ackman

William Albert Ackman, better known as Bill Ackman, is an American hedge-fund manager, investor, and philanthropist, who founded the hedge-fund management company ‘Pershing Square Capital Management’ and serves as its CEO. An MBA from ‘Harvard Business School,’ he began his career in the real-estate sector, working for his father at ‘Ackman Brothers & Singer Inc.’ Later, he founded the investment firm ‘Gotham Partners,’ along with David P. Berkowitz. Following the downfall of ‘Gotham,’ which was a firm that made small investments in public companies, he forayed into the hedge-fund sector once again and founded the hedge-fund management company ‘Pershing Square Capital Management,’ in 2004. As of December 2015, the total assets of the company stood at US$ 12.4 billion. He also manages the large British investment trust ‘Pershing Square Holdings,’ which was founded in 2012. Although he describes himself as an activist investor, he is better known as a contrarian investor and has garnered both praise and criticism for his investing style. Some of his notable market pursuits include acquiring stakes in ‘Chipotle Mexican Grill,’ ‘Valeant Pharmaceuticals,’ and ‘Target Corporation’; holding a US$ 1 billion short against ‘Herbalife’; becoming the largest shareholder of Canadian Pacific Railway’ (CPR) and getting into a proxy battle with it; and shorting bonds of ‘MBIA’ during the financial crisis in 2008.