Ackman is so full of it!
- Thread starter Stocktracker
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But Ackman Can't Break His
Bill Ackman's old magic touch continues to elude him. The fund manager failed to get any of its three nominees onto the board of Automatic Data Processing in his proxy battle with the company's management—a sign that investors no longer respond to his brand of activism. Korn Ferry vice chairman Alan C. Guarino wrote for Fortune Insiders that the best tactic for CEOs who don't want to have to deal with activists taking potshots at their companies is to think and act more like activists themselves. Fortune
Bill Ackman's old magic touch continues to elude him. The fund manager failed to get any of its three nominees onto the board of Automatic Data Processing in his proxy battle with the company's management—a sign that investors no longer respond to his brand of activism. Korn Ferry vice chairman Alan C. Guarino wrote for Fortune Insiders that the best tactic for CEOs who don't want to have to deal with activists taking potshots at their companies is to think and act more like activists themselves. Fortune
Ackman has nearly 80% of his portfolio in less than 10 stocks. Nearly 50% in 3 stocks only !!
He has merely 6-8 folks in his investments team while he has AUM of $10B.
Any decent minded "Billionaire" who is true to his clients would have atleast a dozen college grad analysts diving into markets and getting him fresh ideas/trends/plays everyday. Just give them a 3 month fresher intro to markets and these new grads will work out of their skin to impress.
On the contrary, Soros funds have 100s of positions and has shown good results over couple of decades.
He has merely 6-8 folks in his investments team while he has AUM of $10B.
Any decent minded "Billionaire" who is true to his clients would have atleast a dozen college grad analysts diving into markets and getting him fresh ideas/trends/plays everyday. Just give them a 3 month fresher intro to markets and these new grads will work out of their skin to impress.
On the contrary, Soros funds have 100s of positions and has shown good results over couple of decades.
Hey yesterday..... he said... and I quote... "I will never talk about Herbalife on TV again".
Too funny.
Incredibly mis-timed statement....as now that the board is out of ammunition to gun the shorts....he is finally "right" !!!
That HLF board was out to get him from the get-go.
That’s not his business model. He’s an activist fund which means he takes large stakes in companies and creates positive value by changing those companies (management, capital structure etc). That’s what he’s arguably good at and it would be silly for him to change that. Predictably, it produces very volatile returns and Ackmans arrogance is not helping.
Not agreed. Changing capital sturcture? bring in a sharp currency derivatives trader and he/she would create positions that reduce cost of borrowing on companies debt by 1-2% if successful. Even .25% reduction would payoff handsomely. Bring in a good market forecaster and he would hedge various positions like currency, commodities, ARs, APs etc. etc. to companies benefit in both long and short run. Bring in a specialist process guy and he would further streamline company's production ops etc. etc.
Ackman while a smart Harvard dude and well exposed in the industry, cannot specialize in everything in the trading town. Does not hurt by much to hire "snipers" who would assist in many crucial ways while main forces are barely crawling forward on the ground.
Sometimes he also does some ginormous seagulls, just for sh*ts and giggles, it seems...
I think Matt Levine wrote a good post about this. While Ackman's record as an activist is also mixed, you could maybe argue that he's good at it. Somewhat predictably and ironically, the things that he has actually failed at pretty spectacularly have all been things that have very little to do with activism. Ackman, therefore, is a pretty textbook case of "mandate drift". I'd argue that hubris is the underlying reason.
Besides making money for himself when the investment worked, did the company's fundamentals really improve for the better? I think that is the most useful yardstick for success. Did Ackman make money at the expense of the company like what some private equity fund did?