market folly

Pershing Square Capital Management founder and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman recently appeared on CNBC in an extended segment. In his interview, he talked about the Goldman Sachs fraud case, the benefits of short selling, and most notably, some of his investments. They segment also noted that Bill Ackman is the subject of Christine Richard's new book, Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street's Bluff. The book focuses on Ackman's campaign against bond insurer MBIA (MBI) and we will be reading & reviewing the book here shortly.

We're going to do things a bit backwards here and start with Ackman's closing thoughts from the interview because they deal with his investments. Pershing Square's founder updates us on his stakes in General Growth Properties (GGP) and Target (TGT). Readers will know that we've previously disclosed Pershing's economic exposure to GGP as they bet on the emerging-from-bankruptcy REIT player. Ackman notes that Pershing invested $50-60 million GGP equity when shares were seemingly on life support and that investment is now worth over $1 billion and was the "best investment (he's) ever made." He also hopes for the mall operator to emerge from bankruptcy, "hopefully come September or sooner." Lastly, Ackman thinks shares of GGP could double over the next several years if everything is "done correctly." Here's the video:

Regarding his Target position, Ackman notes that Pershing still owns over $1 billion of stock and it is one of their largest investments. Email readers please note that you'll need to come to the site in order to watch all these videos. Here's the video where Ackman discusses his investments:




In the next video, Ackman turns to financial reform and he is in favor of regulatory implementations. Here's his thoughts:




Turning to the last video interview, we get some commentary from Christine Richard, the author of the new book on Ackman, Confidence Game. Additionally, Ackman discusses the Goldman Sachs case:



Overall, an intriguing set of talking points as Ackman was a guest at CNBC for an extended period of time. While some readers will crave more investment specific conversation, he still chatted about relevant and important topics. While his General Growth Properties investment is the best he's ever made, he was also correct and successful in his past wager against MBIA. You can read about how his hedge fund manager mind works in the new book Confidence Game. We'll be reading it and reviewing it shortly.

For more of our coverage on hedge fund Pershing Square, we see that they recently sold their Sears Canada stake, and we detailed their newly disclosed Yum Brands position (YUM). Lastly, to learn more about Ackman and his hedge fund, head to our past profile of Pershing Square.