Bill Ackman prepares for Pershing Square IPO, eyeing debut in 2026

By Katherine Burton

 

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is revving up a long-anticipated plan to hold an initial public offering for his Pershing Square Capital Management, the Financial Times reported, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the matter. 

Ackman is talking with advisers and has informed some of his firm’s investors of his intent to seek a listing in 2026 — potentially as soon as the first quarter, the newspaper said. Still, the talks are preliminary and the initiative could get shelved depending on market conditions, it said.

 

In what would be a unique double IPO, Ackman is looking to simultaneously list a new investment fund along with Pershing Square, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

 

A spokesperson for Pershing Square reached by Bloomberg News declined to comment.

 

Ackman has been laying the groundwork in recent years for what would be a rare market debut of a large hedge fund management firm. Last year, he agreed to sell a stake in Pershing in a private deal that valued it at more than $10 billion and served as a prelude to an IPO — which a person with knowledge of the matter said at the time could take place as soon as late 2025.

 

Ackman, 59, made a name for himself as an activist investor with an outsize presence on social media and a willingness to take concentrated positions in a relatively small roster of stocks. He has a net worth of $8.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

 

Most of Pershing Square’s assets are in Pershing Square Holdings Ltd., a closed-end fund that trades in London that holds 15 positions and managed $19.3 billion at the end of October. It generated a return of more than 17% this year through Nov. 18.

 

Ackman said last year he planned to list a similar fund on the New York Stock Exchange called Pershing Square USA Ltd. He had a target of raising as much as $25 billion, but temporarily pulled the listing after only raising about $2 billion. 

 

In May, Pershing Square struck a deal to boost its Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. stake to almost 47% in a plan to build an insurer and expand the real estate company into a company with controlling stakes in other public and private businesses. He likened the model to what Warren Buffett built at Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which has greatly benefited from using insurance company holdings to provide low-cost capital for other investments.