Pershing Square Capital CEO, Bill Ackman expressed his optimistic outlook on midcap real estate companies, during his presentation at the Value Investing Congress in Manhattan, NY today, as featured in our earlier article. Ackman likes real estate investment trust General Growth Properties Inc (NYSE:GGP), citing that the stock has done incredibly well, since it emerged from the bankruptcy protection.
Other Midcap real estate stocks that have been mentioned in the congress include Alexander & Baldwin Inc (NYSE:ALEX), which is a real estate and agricultural company with vast land holdings in Hawaii.
The other Midcap real estate company mentioned is Gencorp Inc (NYSE:GY), which is an aeronautics company, involved in the business of making propulsion devices for missiles and rockets. The company owns land in California which has received approval to develop about 6,000 acres.
Another real estate midcap comes from Calgary, Canada, and goes by the name Brookfield residential properties. While the company is actually a land developer and home builder, about 62% of its fixed assets is raw undeveloped land.
Nonetheless, the biggest highlights came from General Growth Properties Inc (NYSE:GGP), which Bill Ackman believes is a fantastic business, as a stand alone company. However, he was very precautionary on the impending controlling stake by Brookfield, citing that the assets managers could easily get their bid to about 45%, as the bid now stands at approximately 42%.
He said that Brookfield is trying to get a controlling stake without having to pay a premium for it, today at the value investing Congress in NY.
Bill Ackman is an activist investor, and is most notable for his recent activist investing campaigns in The Proctor & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) and Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (NYSE:CP).
Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square owns approximately 10% in General Growth Properties Inc (NYSE:GGP), which happens to be the second highest ownership after Brookfield. Ackman said that it would be better if the Simon Property Group buyout, which made four offers to acquire GGP, went through, expressing his support for the minority interest parties in the shareholding.
We will be doing live updates as the Value Investing Congress continues, so stay tuned…
