|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By: Mario Mancini
Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management has made a significant comeback by securing the 20th spot on LCH Investments’ top 20 ranking of the world’s best-performing hedge funds. The New York-based fund, managing $17.9 billion in assets, experienced a remarkable turnaround in 2023, generating $3.5 billion in net gains for the year, as reported by LCH Investments.
Founded by Ackman in 2004, Pershing Square fell out of the ranking in 2015 due to substantial losses associated with bold investments in Procter & Gamble, JCPenney, and Herbalife Nutrition. These investments resulted in losses of $600 million, $500 million, and $760 million, respectively, according to LCH’s findings, NY Post reported.
Over the past three years, Pershing Square has rebounded, accumulating returns of $12.3 billion, representing roughly two-thirds of all gains generated since its inception.
The resurgence of Ackman’s firm has earned it a place on LCH’s list of top-performing funds, contributing to the collective outsized net gains of $67 billion made by the top 20 hedge funds in 2023. This impressive figure accounts for 31% of all gains in the hedge fund sector last year, according to MarketWatch.
Bill Ackman, with a net worth of $4.1 billion according to Forbes, has recently been involved in a campaign against former Harvard President Claudine Gay. The campaign is in response to reports of increasing on-campus antisemitism following the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. Gay resigned amid criticism of her responses at a congressional hearing on antisemitism and allegations of improperly credited work in her academic writing. Ackman, accused of “bullying” Gay into stepping down, defended his actions, asserting that his fortune allows him the ability “to speak the truth.”
LCH’s top 20 ranking also revealed that Citadel, led by hedge fund magnate Ken Griffin, secured the No. 1 spot for the second consecutive year. Citadel, founded in 1990, posted the highest overall gains since its inception, amounting to $74 billion. This success displaced Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, which dropped to the fourth spot in the 2023 ranking after losing $2.6 billion, the worst performance among the top 20.
Bridgewater faced challenges as Dalio sought to distance himself from an exposé titled “The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend.” The book, released in November, portrayed Dalio as a sharp-elbowed boss fixated on his “radical transparency” mantra. It highlighted incidents like the internal issue known as the “piss case,” where Dalio used transparency to address a situation involving urine found on the floor of the men’s bathroom.
Caxton, a New York City-based hedge fund managing $12 billion, was the only other firm among LCH’s top 20 that experienced a loss. On the positive side, Chris Hohn’s The Children’s Investment Fund Management boasted the greatest gains in 2023, securing net gains of $12.9 billion. Consequently, TCI ascended seven places from 14th in 2022 to No. 7 in 2023.
