The billionaire investor and online provocateur Bill Ackman has finally delivered on his promise to list shares of his investment funds in the United States.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Ackman stood alongside his wife, Neri Oxman, and a phalanx of employees to celebrate the start of trading on the New York Stock Exchange of a new stock-picking fund, called Pershing Square USA, as well as shares of its parent company, Pershing Square Inc. The I.P.O. raised $5 billion.
When trading began in the early afternoon, shares of Pershing Square USA, which trades under the ticker symbol PSUS, fell more than 15 percent from its offering price of $50.
In 2024, Mr. Ackman tried to take Pershing Square public in the United States with fund-raising targets north of $25 billion. But after weeks of meeting with investors and amid shrinking expectations for how much could be raised, he called off the I.P.O. days before it was scheduled to begin trading.
The $5 billion from Wednesday’s I.P.O. was at the low end of the range of what the fund sought to raise, according a securities filing.
Mr. Ackman has often talked about creating an investment fund similar to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, a publicly traded company that owns stocks across numerous industries.
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Ackman said that he plans to hold quarterly conference calls for Pershing Square USA and host a “Berkshire Hathaway-style annual meeting,” which shareholders can attend and ask questions.
Mr. Ackman said in an investor presentation earlier this month that the launch of Pershing Square USA “makes the management company more valuable,” and said he wanted to “share some of that value” with investors in the I.P.O. For every five shares of Pershing Square USA, investors will receive one share of the parent company.
Mr. Ackman proposed another unusual deal earlier this month, a $64 billion deal to acquire Universal Music and move its stock listing to New York from Amsterdam. It would merge a vehicle created by Mr. Ackman’s hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, with Universal Music, which would be reincorporated in Nevada and listed in New York.
In a statement at the time, Universal Music said that it would review the proposal “in accordance with its fiduciary duties.”
Mr. Ackman frequently weighs in on politics, business, scientific research and just about anything — sometimes with very lengthy commentary — on the social media platform X. He’s built a base of more than two million followers, making him among the most closely watched investors.
Over time, Mr. Ackman said, Pershing Square could launch additional investment funds like Pershing Square USA
“We are not going launch, you know, dozens of funds,” he said. “What we want to do is we want a compound at a high rate over a long period of time. That is the business plan.”
