Seth Klarman’s hedge fund Baupost buys Into Ackman’s Pershing Square, adds to tech bets

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square is set to launch a new investment fund aimed at providing investors with access to privately held companies before they go public, as reported by Bloomberg. The firm, Pershing Square Ventures Ltd, will be structured as an evergreen vehicle with permanent capital, allowing it to maintain investments even after portfolio companies list on the stock market.

Ackman and chief investment officer Ryan Israel confirmed the fund's structure. The firm has already begun building its portfolio, with several existing private investments slated to become part of the fund's initial assets. Some investments made through Ackman’s family office are also expected to be transferred into this new fund.

Ackman highlighted the increasing difficulty for ordinary investors to access high-valued technology companies once they reach public markets, citing his early investments in SpaceX, X, and xAI as examples. The launch of Pershing Square Ventures is expected to occur in the autumn or by the end of the year, after obtaining regulatory approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The fund will invest in a wide range of privately held businesses, from those valued at several hundred million dollars to so-called decacorns worth over $10 billion. Ackman anticipates the fund will be relatively small at launch and will not significantly impact Pershing Square’s assets under management initially. This new venture represents another step in Ackman’s expansion of the Pershing Square platform, following the firm’s recent public listing in April and its recent significant portfolio activity, including investments in Visa, Mastercard, and Netflix.

The proposed fund would offer Pershing Square additional avenues for deploying capital and potentially enable a broader group of investors to participate in private company growth earlier in the corporate lifecycle. For Ackman, this strategy aims to broaden access to investment opportunities traditionally restricted to wealthy individuals, family offices, and institutional investors.