Bill Ackman

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square ended 2026-Q1 with $13.7 billion in assets, and the portfolio reads less like a classic activist book and more like a concentrated bet on large-cap cash machines. The top five holdings, Brookfield, Amazon, Uber, Microsoft, and Restaurant Brands, account for roughly 78% of the fund. That is a level of concentration that leaves little room for error, and it is a deliberate choice. Ackman has moved away from the kind of messy, operational turnarounds that defined his earlier career. Instead, he is parking capital in businesses with dominant market positions and predictable free cash flow, then using his activist platform to push for buybacks or governance changes when needed. The most telling position is Brookfield at 17.6%, the largest single stake. It is a conglomerate, which is an unusual holding for an activist who historically preferred simpler stories. But Brookfield gives Pershing Square exposure to infrastructure and private credit without the liquidity discount that often hits closed-end funds. Amazon and Uber, at 17.4% and 15.7% respectively, are growth names that have matured into profitability. Microsoft and Meta round out the tech sleeve. The only true activist holding in the traditional sense is Howard Hughes Holdings at 8.7%, a real estate spin-off that Ackman has controlled for years and continues to back despite its underperformance. The small positions tell a different story. Seaport Entertainment, Hertz warrants, and Alphabet’s non-voting shares are speculative or opportunistic. The Alphabet stake, at just 0.65%, is a hedge against the fund’s own tech concentration, but it is too small to matter. Pershing Square’s style now is simple: own a handful of businesses that generate enormous cash, avoid distressed situations, and let the concentration do the work. It diverges sharply from peers like Elliott or Starboard, who run broader books with more frequent turnover. Ackman is effectively running a permanent portfolio of high-quality compounders, with the activist label attached mostly for the occasional board fight.