William Albert Ackman (born 11th May 1966, New York) is the major investor, founder and CEO of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management LP.^[1] At one point in December 2007 his funds owned a 10% stake in Target Corporation, valued at $4.2 billion^[2] through the purchase of stock and derivatives.^[3] He now owns a 7.8% stake.^[4]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Gotham Partners 3 Pershing Square 4 MBIA activities 5 Target Corp. 6 Personal life 7 References

[edit] Early life

Ackman was raised in Chappaqua, NY. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1988, and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1992.

[edit] Gotham Partners

In 1992, Ackman co-founded Gotham Partners with another Harvard Graduate. ^[5] By 1998, the firm had more than $500mm in assets. ^[5] In 2003, the New York Attorney General investigated whether the firm had engaged in illegal practices for publishing its own research reports on stocks in which it has taken either a long or short position. . ^[5] The litigation concluded that the firm had committed no wrongdoing. ^[5] Gotham Partners mainly invested in non-publicly traded companies and real estate concerns.

[edit] Pershing Square

Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management has in the recent past acquired positions in Wendy's International Inc., McDonald's Corporation and Ceridian Corp., pressuring the management of those companies to improve profits by selling either real estate assets or corporate divisions. The investment company in turn benefits when the asset liquidation returns capital in the form of dividends and a higher share price, whereby Pershing divests itself of its holdings at a higher share price. In the case of Wendy's International, Wendy's management bought back shares following the forced sale of the their subsidiary Tim Horton's through an IPO, while Pershing unloaded most of their shares.^[6]

[edit] MBIA activities

In 2002, Ackman began research which concentrated on challenging MBIA's AAA rating, despite an ongoing probe of his trading by New York State and federal authorities. He was charged copying fees for copying 725,000 pages of statements regarding the financial services company, in his law firm's compliance with a subpoena.^[7] Ackman has called for a division between MBIA's bond insurers' structured finance business and their municipal bond insurance side, despite statements from the insurance companies that this would not be a viable option.^[8]

[edit] Target Corp.

Pershing Square IV was established to bet solely on the rise of the stock of Target Corporation. The fund fell nearly 90% in 2008 and Ackman apologized for the losses.^[9] The fund subsequently rebounded to some extent. Ackman said in a February 2009 letter to investors, “Bottom line, PSIV has been one of the greatest disappointments of my career to date."^[9]

[edit] Personal life

In conjunction with other members of the Ackman and Ziff families, William has given to charitable causes such as the Center for Jewish History to preserve Jewish genealogy. In the press release, the Ackman family stated, "We want our children to know, not only their living relatives, but those representing past generations for a greater connection to their family and ancestral origin and heritage."^[10]

He married Karen Ann Herskovitz, a landscape architect, on July 10, 1994. ^[11] His father is Lawrence Ackman, the chairman of a New York real estate financing firm, Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group.^[12]

[edit] References

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