market folly

Bill Ackman's hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management has filed a 13G on General Growth Properties (GGP). This comes as the company has exited bankruptcy, spun off the Howard Hughes Company (HHC) and now trades as 'new' GGP shares. As such, Ackman discloses a 9.34% ownership stake in the new General Growth Properties entity with 89,237,316 shares.

This 13G filing replaces a previous activist 13D filing on the 'old' GGP entity. This ownership calculation in new GGP is based on 962,622,559 shares of common stock outstanding as of September 30th, 2010 as reported in Form S-11.

Ackman has labeled this the best investment he's ever made. To see what else is in his portfolio in the third quarter update, head to our Hedge Fund Wisdom newsletter. For other recent investment conference commentary from Pershing Square, we detailed how Ackman is bullish on housing.

Taken from Google Finance, General Growth Properties is "a self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT). The Company has ownership interest in, or management responsibility for, over 200 regional shopping malls in 43 states, as well as ownership in master planned communities and commercial office buildings."