Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square has disclosed six new stock investments in its first quarterly shareholder letter as a publicly listed company.
None of the six is a music company.
The new positions in Visa, Mastercard, Netflix, S&P Global, Intercontinental Exchange, and Alcon were disclosed in a letter published on Wednesday (August 12).
Pershing Square Inc. listed on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year.
Ackman‘s fund acquired approximately 10% of Universal Music Group from Vivendi in 2021 for around USD $4 billion, around the time of the company’s listing on Euronext Amsterdam.
“Owning a royalty on music with the best management team in the industry is a blissfully comfortable and profitable place to be.”
Bill Ackman on owning a stake in UMG, March 2025
In March 2025, as Pershing Square began selling down that position, Ackman said UMG was “one of the best businesses we have ever owned”.
Ackman called owning the company “owning a royalty on music with the best management team in the industry.”
He added: “In a world of uncertainty, owning a royalty on music with the best management team in the industry is a blissfully comfortable and profitable place to be.”
Ackman resigned from UMG‘s board in May 2025, while Pershing’s stake fell below 5% of UMG.
Then, in April 2026, Pershing Square made a $64 billion-valued offer for UMG.
When it made the offer, the fund argued that UMG‘s share price had “languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business”.
UMG‘s board rejected the proposal in June, saying it “fundamentally and materially undervalues” the company.
Days later, Pershing Square sold its entire remaining stake of around 80.6 million shares, ending a five-year run as a shareholder.
Universal Music repurchased EUR €250 million ($290 million) of its own stock directly from Pershing Square as part of the disposal.
UMG put plans for a US stock market listing on hold in March 2026.
Pershing’s six new investments were disclosed alongside the deployment of nearly $5 billion of capital from Pershing Square USA, which raised $5 billion in an IPO in April.
In the letter, Pershing Square said that stock market volatility this year had enabled it to deploy PSUS capital at attractive prices.
“We recently made new investments in Visa, Mastercard, Netflix, S&P Global, Intercontinental Exchange, and Alcon, companies we have closely followed for years,” Pershing Square said in the letter.
Visa and Mastercard operate in payments, S&P Global in financial data, Intercontinental Exchange in markets infrastructure, and Alcon in eye care.
The fund’s existing holdings include Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Uber, Brookfield and Restaurant Brands.
Netflix is the only one of the six new investments in the entertainment business.
In the letter, Pershing Square said Netflix “has since effectively won the streaming wars”.
It called Netflix “the dominant global streaming platform with over 325 million subscribers, nearly double the combined base of its two closest competitors, Disney+ and HBO Max”.
The letter was signed by Ackman, Chief Executive Officer, and Ryan Israel, Chief Investment Officer of Pershing Square.Music Business Worldwide