Hedge fund titan Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Inc. has filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on a U.S. stock exchange. The planned transaction would see the billionaire's hedge fund firm, alongside a newly established closed-end fund, list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). According to the filing, this combined IPO offering includes shares in Pershing Square USA Ltd., a closed-end fund, and a portion of the hedge fund management company Pershing Square Capital Management. The filing indicates that for every 100 shares of the closed-end fund purchased in the IPO, investors will receive 20 shares of the hedge fund management firm. Documents submitted on Tuesday show that, as of the end of 2025, the Wall Street alternative asset manager oversaw total assets of approximately $30.7 billion, with $20.7 billion being fee-earning assets. Pershing Square Holdings Ltd., the company's closed-end fund listed on the London Stock Exchange, had assets under management of $17.1 billion as of the end of February. Data compiled by institutions shows that this fund, similar to many other closed-end funds, trades at a significant discount to its net asset value. Current data indicates the fund's median price trades at a 24% discount to NAV. Overall, Ackman's offering is structured as a "combined IPO": one part consists of his hedge fund management company Pershing Square Capital Management / Pershing Square Inc., and the other part is the newly established closed-end fund Pershing Square USA. This means it is not just the hedge fund firm going public alone, but rather the management company and the new fund are being brought to the U.S. market together. Pershing Square stated in a release that once the combined IPO is priced, the two entities are expected to trade independently. This implies they will list on the NYSE under different ticker symbols. While investors buying the closed-end fund will receive an allocation of the management company's shares, post-listing they will be separate securities, not merged into a single asset for trading. The filing shows Ackman aims to raise between $5 billion and $10 billion for Pershing Square USA through this combined offering, with shares priced at $50 each. The offering has already secured $2.8 billion in subscription commitments from qualified investors, including family offices, pension funds, and insurance companies. The filing details that investors participating in the private placement will receive 30 shares of the hedge fund for every 100 shares of the closed-end fund they subscribe to. This filing marks the latest step in Ackman's long-term strategic shift. He is attempting to transition towards a long-term market investment strategy inspired by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, aiming to build his investment platform into a long-term capital vehicle similar to Berkshire. This Pershing Square IPO represents the most recent move in Ackman's prolonged turn towards a "Berkshire-style" model: moving away from the traditional hedge fund structure of "raising capital-charging fees-offering redemptions" towards possessing more stable, long-term deployable permanent capital. The goal is to elevate Pershing from a star hedge fund into a platform more akin to a "publicly-traded long-term investment empire." It is understood that this combined offering is led by a syndicate of Wall Street giants including Citigroup, UBS Group, Bank of America, Jefferies Financial Group, and Wells Fargo. Earlier, a plan to raise up to $25 billion for a closed-end fund intended to list on the NYSE in 2024 was abandoned. Several months later, Ackman's Pershing Square instead actively increased its stake in Howard Hughes Holdings Inc., seeking to use it as a vehicle for acquiring controlling stakes in other companies. In 2024, he had agreed to sell a 10% stake in Pershing through a private transaction, which valued the firm at over $10 billion prior to the proposed IPO.
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