"Baby Buffett" Bill went long on Valeant, a company so evil that it makes diet smoothie MLM Herbalife look like the Salvation Army, yet people here apparently still think he's a good guy because of his sympathetic portrayal in Betting on Zero. Ackman not only is not a good guy, he's also, like most hedge fund managers, completely incompetent:
> The losses in each of the past three years — of 4, 13.5 and 20.5 percent — come against gains in the S&P 500 of 19.4 and 9.5 plus a 0.7 percent dip, respectively. The Pershing losses took its net assets to $9.3 billion from $18.3 billion.
PSCM can't even consistently beat the S&P 500, and Ackman's already on his second fund after having blown up his first (Gotham Partners)--why on earth would anyone give this guy their money? Because he's handsome and a smooth-talker, I suppose.
He sure deserves his lumps over Valeant but let’s not play pretend. There are plenty of monsters on Wall Street who will gladly destroy great companies for short term profits.
Eric Ries has the right idea with the long term stock exchange.
What is the LTSE? From their website it doesn't really seem like they do anything other than some apps for entrepreneurs?
Often the mechanism for destroying great companies is plundering one group of stakeholders to pay off equity and management. E.g. firing long-time employees, underfunding/changing pensions, over leveraging, or risky regulatory strategies that they won't be around to face the consequences for. I don't see how what stock exchange something is listed on has much effect on any of those.
> The losses in each of the past three years — of 4, 13.5 and 20.5 percent — come against gains in the S&P 500 of 19.4 and 9.5 plus a 0.7 percent dip, respectively. The Pershing losses took its net assets to $9.3 billion from $18.3 billion.
https://nypost.com/2018/01/10/ackmans-pershing-square-fund-t...
PSCM can't even consistently beat the S&P 500, and Ackman's already on his second fund after having blown up his first (Gotham Partners)--why on earth would anyone give this guy their money? Because he's handsome and a smooth-talker, I suppose.