Bill Ackman “Hedge Fund Managers Wouldn’t Mind A Higher Tax Rate”

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The details on the Boys and Girls Harbor charity conference (which I promoted recently on ValueWalk), with Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital Management.
Full video and transcript below:

ackman is here, let’s get more thoughts. can we talk about, let me say who you are, you’re founder and ceo of a $10 billion — it’s an activist fund, a hedge fund, i guess pershing square capital management. and also you got your tentacles in all kinds of different charities, one in particular that you’re very involved with, right? this is yours, isn’t it in. i’m on the board, i’m quite involved. it’s an organization called the boys and girls harbor. early childhood education, charter school, music and arts conservatory for east harlem community. 104th and 5th avenue. been around for 75 years, 75th anniversary. we have an investment conference. you make a donation of $1500. we invite some great speakers to come and talk. it’s a very intimate gathering. it’s usually 200, 300 people at most. we have a lunch, an opportunity to meet the speakers. we have, i’ll be there. i’m doing a charlie rose-style interview with steve roth, the reit ceo. and will at fidelity, one of the best-performing managers. we’ve got some kind of younger, more start-up managers. it’s going to be a great day. i’m going to give you a one-time special offer for cnbc. if you watch the show, you’llcome to the harbor conference, instead of $1500, i will matchdollar for dollar your contributions, you can give $750 and can you come for half-price, a two-day special, to motivate people to sign up. there are a limited number of seats. so kind of half off.but if you get 1500, i’ll also give 1500. you can either double your charitable commitment. and it’s a great event. there are events like this, but they’re usually 1,000 people and you don’t get to meet the speakers. how can we prove that they will watch? they’ll say a little thing saying i saw it on cnbc. someone can tell someone they saw it. you have to tell them what color tie. you have to take a lie detector test. what color of tie. orange-brown. but it’s actually a great event, i enjoy it and it’s animportant part of our fundraising. and you, at times will saysomething you haven’t said before. absolutely. i’m going to give an idea. you can make — an investing idea. you’ll make $1500 from my idea. very low-risk. pay for the whole event. you said earlier, and this is obviously something that you’d like to happen. but you said, if people buy jcpenney and people buy canadian pacific, the stocks going up. you feel good about these. i feel great about the people running. i feel great about ron johnson running jcpenney and the people he’s recruited.helped lift morale at the company. you’ll learn a lot more the next two hours. from 9:00 to 11:00 the company is making a presentation about the pricing, the branding, the marketing.you’re on the right track with that and you’re sure you’re on the right track? i’m sure. we open 26% of the company, in it to win.canadian pacific is a different story. it’s more event-driven. if we are successful, and i expect we will be, with hunter harrison as the ceo, this is a stock you’ll want to own. the price target, 100 if we get this guy elected. i think the shareholders will go for it. if we don’t win, the stock is going right back. it was 46 before we got involved. let’s get back to the other business. why, the hedge fund, $10 billion, why did you tell me that very little of your income is carried interest, 15%? for the hedge fund industry it’s not, it’s not as good a deal, if you will, in some sense as the private equity industry. it depends on the character of the underlying income. it depends on whether the fund is offshore or onshore. the way we are structured, 100% of the incentive fee that we get for the offshore fund is taxable as ordinary income.and for the onshore fund, it’s only that portion of the incomethat’s long-term. so if you own a stock on a long-term basis, that share of the — since most of our money is offshore. are you willing to tell me what your usual tax rate is? i don’t know it. it’s much higher than — it depends on how charitable donations affect it i do make a large amount of charitable donations.you’ve got 50 million. i want to ask you, now i’m thinking to get the red herring, we should change carried interest. i’m not opposed to it. i think — i think most hedge fund managers would support carried interest tax being higher but they want to support tax reform generally. bill, thank you very much for being here today. when we come back we’ll have

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