Billionaire investor Bill Ackman has been busy putting billions of dollars to work after completing one of the biggest milestones in the history of Pershing Square. In its second-quarter update, Pershing Square highlighted the $5 billion initial public offering of PSUS, the New York Stock Exchange listing of Pershing Square USA, Ltd. (PSUS), and the deployment of the new fund's capital. "In summary, it was a highly productive few months since our IPO," Ackman said in a shareholder letter.
Pershing Square has deployed more than 95% of PSUS's capital across 14 investments. That includes six new positions: Visa (V), Mastercard (MA), Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Netflix (NFLX), Alcon (ALC), and S&P Global (SPGI). "They are simple, predictable, and free cash flow-generative, with strong competitive positions, minimal financial leverage and capital markets dependency, and are run by excellent management teams," Ackman said about the companies he invested in.
Uber Technologies (UBER) | 12.72% | $2,476.98 million Brookfield Corporation (BN) | 12.58% | $2,448.12 million Microsoft (MSFT) | 11.89% | $2,315.23 million Amazon (AMZN) | 10.49% | $2,041.11 million Howard Hughes Holdings (HHH) | 10.23% | $1,991.14 million Restaurant Brands International (QSR) | 9.62% | $1,872.30 million Meta Platforms (META) | 9.25% | $1,800.31 million Mastercard (MA) | 5.61% | $1,091.22 million S&P Global (SPGI) | 5.43% | $1,056.09 million Netflix (NFLX) | 4.80% | $934.02 million Pershing Square USA (PSUS) | 0.77% | $149.52 million Seaport Entertainment Group (SEG) | 0.69% | $133.63 million Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ) | 0.17% | $33.96 million Ackman also pointed to an increasingly concentrated stock market as a source of investment opportunities. The S&P 500 gained roughly 10% during the first six months of the year, but Ackman noted that nearly 85% of those gains came from just two sectors: semiconductors and technology hardware and equipment. Related: Cathie Wood buys $16.2 million of popular semiconductor stock Those two sectors represent about 22% of the S&P 500's market capitalization but only 8% of its companies.
Meanwhile, Ackman noted more than 90% of S&P 500 companies collectively accounted for less than 2% of the index's overall return, according to Pershing Square. Nearly 40% of the companies in the index posted negative share-price performance. For Ackman, that gap created an opportunity.
He said the market backdrop allowed Pershing Square to deploy nearly $5 billion of PSUS capital since the IPO at what it considers attractive valuations. Ackman has a broader goal of generating strong returns over long periods rather than chasing short-term market moves. "Since our inception, we have achieved a gross return of 20% per annum," Ackman said, adding that his long-term goal is to generate gross annual returns above 20% across the funds and companies it manages and invests in.
Ackman said in a 2025 post on X (the former Twitter) that he first learned about Warren Buffett when he was 20 years old. Shortly after, he was inspired to become an investor. Years ago, Ackman was known as an activist investor, taking large stakes in companies and publicly pushing management to make changes.
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