Ackman’s Pershing Square Up 2.6% YTD, Rare Short Position Added

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Ackman's Pershing Square Up 2.6% YTD, Rare Short Position Added

 

We recently posted Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square letter for the first quarter of 2012. Bill Ackman discusses several new positions and many existing positions in the letter. He mentions that JCP has received a buyout offer at $30 a share.

Pershing Square returned close to 12% as of the end of the first quarter. We were surprised that the letter was dated June 12th, 2012, even though other news organizations had reported May numbers. Below is a quote from the previous article:

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square is up 11.8% year to date as of March 31st. Katya Wachtel of Reuters and Amy Or of DowJones, reported a loss of 7% for the month of May. We have not received the stat sheet for May, but that would bite a chunk out of the returns for the year.

We are not sure why Ackman omitted the May numbers, but someone was kind enough to send us the stat sheet for May. The quarter was likely one of the worst ever for Pershing Square. The flagship, Pershing Square, L.P., was down 8.4% gross and 7% net. The year to date return is 3.6% gross and 2.6% net respectively.

Ackman has a short position, which is rare for the fund. He is mostly a long only investor. The position was not disclosed in either the stat sheet or quarterly letter. The letter only stated ‘We have also added an equity short position to the portfolio.”

Assets under management total $10.5 billion for the firm, and $4.4 billion for Pershing Square, L.P. The firm is now 4% net short debt and equity.

Total positions are 13; 12 are long, and one is short.

Credit Default Swap Exposure Portfolio is long Credit Default Swaps with a notional exposure ~ $9.8B.

We will have to wait and see what the mysterious short is…

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