Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: William Ackman's publicly traded hedge fund Pershing Square Holdings (PSH) has outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 and FTSE 250 indices with a gain of 12.7 percent this year through Aug. 7.
A press release from the British investment trust dedicated to long-term investments in North American companies said that its gain was driven by positive second quarter performance, NAV in the first half of 2018 increased from $17.41 to $18.58, a 6.7% increase. Year-to-date performance, through August 7th, has increased to 12.7% (NAV per share is now $19.62) compared with 8.1% for the S&P 500 and 1.3 % for the FTSE 250 over the same period.
"While a few months of strong performance is too short a period to judge our performance, we believe that (Pershing Square Holdings) is back on track," the billionaire investor Ackman stated in his firm's interim financial report.
It said that the returns were principally generated from investment performance, and were enhanced by the PSH's recently completed own-share tender offer.
The rising prices at Chipotle Mexican Grill and Automatic Data Processing have fueled the performance. Chipotle added 5.6 percent while Automatic Data Processing, where Ackman lost a bitter proxy fight in 2017, added 5.1 percent, the financial report said.
According to the report, the fund's two newest stakes, in United Technologies Corporation (UTX) and Lowe's, also rose. At UTX, the fund has been lobbying ...................... To view our full article Click here
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