As Warren Buffett leaves the investing stage, an aspiring successor is trying to emulate him — again. Bill Ackman filed today to take his investment firm public. He has long described Pershing Square as a mini-Berkshire Hathaway — a stable of blue-chip companies, held for the long term with minimal meddling from above. That stable could also include a fleet of funds of various flavors: One to help take public large startups that would once have been too big for traditional IPOs (a twist on another of Ackman’s unfulfilled dreams) and another focused on asymmetric macro bets, like his Big Covid Short in 2020 or his inflation wager in 2021, which together turned $200 million into $4 billion.
This is Ackman’s second attempt at listing Pershing Square, after withdrawing an oversized plan in 2024 that found little market appetite. This time around he’s throwing in a sweetener: Investors who buy shares in Pershing’s new closed-end fund will also get a slice of the management company, which chooses investments and collects fees. That entity had $250 million of profits last year on $763 million of revenue, according to a filing.