There was an article in Bloomberg Businessweek on Bill Ackman that I thought was quite interesting reading. It gives a bit more information about Ackman than I had ever seen before.
A few snippets:
“He has shown such confidence for years. When Ackman was a senior in high school, he made a $2,000 wager with his father, a commercial mortgage broker, that he would get a perfect score on his SATs. He got one question wrong. But he didn't lose any money. He was so sure of himself that his dad withdrew his bet the night before the test. “
“Ackman went to Harvard, where he surprised his undergraduate friends with his fascination with the financial markets. "He was always interested in business and investing," says Tilson. "I still remember seeing him on Black Monday in 1987. He said, 'Did you see what happened in the market today?' I had no idea."
“He has made more good calls than bad, but the bad ones have been memorable. He ended up liquidating Gotham Partners, his first fund, in 2003, because of a bad bet on golf courses. In 2009 he apologized to clients who had money in a Pershing Square fund that suffered a $1.8 billion loss on an investment in Target (TGT), the Minneapolis-based retailer. And he admits that Pershing Square has lost $125 million on its investment in the Ann Arbor (Mich.)-based Borders (BGP) bookstore chain, which is expected to file soon for bankruptcy. “
“In conversation he possesses the geeky intensity of a high school wunderkind, speaking quickly as if he's trying to squeeze as much information as he can into a limited amount of time. Much of his talk these days revolves around his optimism about the recovery and how it has driven some of his investing. "We have been more bullish than most people on the economy for a while now," says Ackman.”
“Ackman may or may not be sparking the rebound of the housing market, but he has few doubts about his thesis: He says it's all about being able to look at the world with complete dispassion. "When you go through something like the financial crisis, it makes a psychological imprint on you," he says. "It becomes hard to interpret information in a way that is positive. I'm emotionally very neutral about economic things. That's why I can look at them objectively."
“In 1992, after graduating from Harvard with an MBA, he and David Berkowitz, one of his classmates, founded Gotham Partners. From the beginning, Ackman fancied himself a real estate expert like his dad, and that was where a good deal of the fund's money flowed. However, real estate would also be the downfall of Gotham Partners. The fund bought 26 golf courses with other people's money and tried to sell them to a REIT. One of the trust's investors filed a class action in protest, and a New York judge effectively killed the plan in 2002. Rather than carry on, the partners dissolved the fund.
It was a painful moment for Ackman. A year earlier he had shorted MBIA, a bond insurance company that he thought was taking on too much risk by guaranteeing faddishly exotic flavors of debt such as collateralized debt obligations. He cornered regulators and ratings agency officials at public events and told them MBIA would soon fail. The bond insurer complained to then-New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Ackman was served with a subpoena from Spitzer's office, which wanted to know if he was spreading misinformation about MBIA to salvage his dying fund. WhenThe New York Times learned of this, it painted Ackman as a sleazy opportunist. “
And the entire article:
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/11_08/b4216054451075.htm
A few snippets:
“He has shown such confidence for years. When Ackman was a senior in high school, he made a $2,000 wager with his father, a commercial mortgage broker, that he would get a perfect score on his SATs. He got one question wrong. But he didn't lose any money. He was so sure of himself that his dad withdrew his bet the night before the test. “
“Ackman went to Harvard, where he surprised his undergraduate friends with his fascination with the financial markets. "He was always interested in business and investing," says Tilson. "I still remember seeing him on Black Monday in 1987. He said, 'Did you see what happened in the market today?' I had no idea."
“He has made more good calls than bad, but the bad ones have been memorable. He ended up liquidating Gotham Partners, his first fund, in 2003, because of a bad bet on golf courses. In 2009 he apologized to clients who had money in a Pershing Square fund that suffered a $1.8 billion loss on an investment in Target (TGT), the Minneapolis-based retailer. And he admits that Pershing Square has lost $125 million on its investment in the Ann Arbor (Mich.)-based Borders (BGP) bookstore chain, which is expected to file soon for bankruptcy. “
“In conversation he possesses the geeky intensity of a high school wunderkind, speaking quickly as if he's trying to squeeze as much information as he can into a limited amount of time. Much of his talk these days revolves around his optimism about the recovery and how it has driven some of his investing. "We have been more bullish than most people on the economy for a while now," says Ackman.”
“Ackman may or may not be sparking the rebound of the housing market, but he has few doubts about his thesis: He says it's all about being able to look at the world with complete dispassion. "When you go through something like the financial crisis, it makes a psychological imprint on you," he says. "It becomes hard to interpret information in a way that is positive. I'm emotionally very neutral about economic things. That's why I can look at them objectively."
“In 1992, after graduating from Harvard with an MBA, he and David Berkowitz, one of his classmates, founded Gotham Partners. From the beginning, Ackman fancied himself a real estate expert like his dad, and that was where a good deal of the fund's money flowed. However, real estate would also be the downfall of Gotham Partners. The fund bought 26 golf courses with other people's money and tried to sell them to a REIT. One of the trust's investors filed a class action in protest, and a New York judge effectively killed the plan in 2002. Rather than carry on, the partners dissolved the fund.
It was a painful moment for Ackman. A year earlier he had shorted MBIA, a bond insurance company that he thought was taking on too much risk by guaranteeing faddishly exotic flavors of debt such as collateralized debt obligations. He cornered regulators and ratings agency officials at public events and told them MBIA would soon fail. The bond insurer complained to then-New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Ackman was served with a subpoena from Spitzer's office, which wanted to know if he was spreading misinformation about MBIA to salvage his dying fund. WhenThe New York Times learned of this, it painted Ackman as a sleazy opportunist. “
And the entire article:
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/11_08/b4216054451075.htm
