27 Facts About William Ackman

William Albert Ackman was born on May 11,1966 and is an American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager.

William Ackman is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund management company.

In 1992, Ackman founded the investment firm Gotham Partners with fellow Harvard graduate David P Berkowitz.

In 1995, William Ackman partnered with the insurance and real estate firm Leucadia National to bid for Rockefeller Center.

William Ackman was charged fees for copying 725,000 pages of statements regarding the financial services company as part of his law firm's compliance with a subpoena.

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William Ackman called for a division between MBIA's structured finance business and its municipal bond insurance business.

William Ackman reported covering his short position on MBIA on January 16,2009, according to the 13D filed with the SEC.

In December 2012, William Ackman issued a research report that was critical of Herbalife's multi-level marketing business model, calling it a pyramid scheme.

William Ackman disclosed that his hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, sold short the company's shares directly starting in May 2012, causing Herbalife's stock price to drop.

In 2014, William Ackman spent $50 million on a public relations campaign against Herbalife, which was designed to hurt the company's stock price.

Bob Barr called on Congress to investigate Ackman's use of public relations and regulatory pressure in his short campaign, and Harvey L Pitt, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has questioned whether Ackman aims to move the price rather than spread the truth.

Markey later told the Boston Globe that his staff had not informed him that William Ackman stood to benefit financially from his actions and defended the letters as a matter of consumer rights.

In March 2014, the New York Times reported that William Ackman had employed tactics to undermine public confidence in Herbalife to lower its stock price, including pressuring state and federal regulators to investigate the company, paying individuals to travel to and participate in rallies against it, and boosting its spending on donations to nonprofit Latino organizations.

On February 28,2018, William Ackman exited his near billion-dollar bet against Herbalife after the company's stock price continued to rise, choosing to build his position in United Technologies instead.

On March 18,2020, in an emotional interview with CNBC, William Ackman called upon President Trump for a "30-day shutdown" of the American economy to slow the spread of coronavirus and minimize loss of life and ensuing economic destruction resulting from the shutdown.

William Ackman warned that without intervention, hotel stocks were “going to zero” and said that America could “end as we know it.

William Ackman later received criticism for actively buying discounted equity stakes in the very companies he was warning could fail; however, William Ackman already had realized roughly half of the gains before appearing during the CNBC interview.

William Ackman has said that his most successful investments have always been controversial, and that his first rule of activist investing is to "make a bold call that nobody believes in".

William Ackman's investing style has been praised and criticized by US government officials, heads of other hedge funds, various retail investors, and the general public.

From 2012 to 2018, William Ackman held a US$1 billion short against the nutrition company Herbalife, a company he has claimed is a pyramid scheme designed as a multi-level marketing firm.

William Ackman's efforts were reported in the documentary film Betting on Zero.

William Ackman has said that he admires short sellers such as Carson Block of Muddy Waters Capital and Andrew Left of Citron Research.

William Ackman has given to charitable causes such as the Center for Jewish History, where he spearheaded a successful effort to retire $30 million in debt, personally contributing $6.

William Ackman married Karen Ann Herskovitz, a landscape architect, on July 10,1994 and they have three children.

In January 2019, Oxman and William Ackman married at the Central Synagogue in Manhattan, and they had their first child together in spring 2019.

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William Ackman endorsed Michael Bloomberg as a prospective candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 presidential election.

William Ackman is a longtime donor to Democratic candidates and organizations, including Richard Blumenthal, Chuck Schumer, Robert Menendez, the Democratic National Committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.