Bill Ackman Has Outgrown His Hero(Deal Breaker)
The Ackmanaissance, that remarkable and improbable turnaround in Pershing Square Capital Management founder Bill Ackman’s fortunes from the depths of humiliation and failure to the heights of the hedge fund world, did not begin, as is commonly believed by romantics, when he even more improbably wrested the affections of a brilliant and beautiful woman from the arms of Brad Pitt. Instead, the spark was a 50-year-old letter written by Warren Buffett. This will not surprise the more seasoned Ackmanologists, who know well of his debt to and aspirations to become a successor to the Oracle of Omaha. The relationship has had its ups and downs (and then some more downs, and some more after that), but Ackman remains, at heart, a man of the Berkshirean persuasion.
The Ackmanaissance, that remarkable and improbable turnaround in Pershing Square Capital Management founder Bill Ackman’s fortunes from the depths of humiliation and failure to the heights of the hedge fund world, did not begin, as is commonly believed by romantics, when he even more improbably wrested the affections of a brilliant and beautiful woman from the arms of Brad Pitt. Instead, the spark was a 50-year-old letter written by Warren Buffett. This will not surprise the more seasoned Ackmanologists, who know well of his debt to and aspirations to become a successor to the Oracle of Omaha. The relationship has had its ups and downs (and then some more downs, and some more after that), but Ackman remains, at heart, a man of the Berkshirean persuasion.
