NYT – The billionaire hedge fund manager William A. Ackman, one of Wall Street’s boldest investors, is building an unusual multibillion-dollar war chest, DealBook’s Alexandra Stevenson writes. While hedge funds typically raise funds privately, the founder of the $13 billion Pershing Square Capital Management is said to be planning to raise billions of dollars for a closed-end fund that could list on the London Stock Exchange as soon as this summer.
By raising money in a separate structure from his hedge fund, Mr. Ackman can lock up and put to use money that is not subject to investor redemption requests. Investors in the publicly listed entity would be betting on his success as an activist investor. And unlike most investors in hedge funds, they would be able to sell their shares in the market whenever they wished. This is not the first time Mr. Ackman has had the idea for a public listing. Two years ago, the hedge fund manager told investors that Pershing Square would list a fund with more than $4 billion in assets. That public offering never happened.
