저자: CouchInvestor · 외국인
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빌 애크먼(Pershing Square) 포트폴리오의 신규 6개 종목(비자, 마스터카드, 넷플릭스, S&P글로벌, ICE, 알콘)과 기존 보유 확대를 소개. 넷플릭스는 고점 대비 약 50% 하락 후 재진입, 빅테크·결제주는 AI 우려로 밸류 과도하게 눌렸다고 분석. 발표자는 우버·메타·구글·넷플릭스를 보유 중이라고 밝힘. 페르싱 스퀘어 벤처·하워드휴즈 등 기업 구조도 언급.
다듬은 글
Hello everyone, welcome to another video today. In today's video, we'll take a look at Bill Ackman's portfolio. They have taken quite a few steps. Well, I said Bill Eckman, but it's actually Pershing Square. The same, but different, yet still the same. Six new positions, as well as adding to existing ones.
We'll look at why they add these names, what the reasons are behind it , and why it makes perfect sense for them to buy at these prices. These are, of course, reputable companies. The funny thing is that I own several companies that are in their portfolio. I have Uber, Meta, Google. They added Netflix again.
Remember, Netflix is where they were in 2022. Shares fell about 40%. They sold pretty close to the bottom. And, of course, Netflix has grown. But Netflix shares have fallen about 50% from last year's highs. And they feel like they see a lot of value in it now . So they buy this asset. They also bought Visa, MasterCard, and several other companies.
And their approach here is quite, well, logical. They are not looking to make quick money in a quarter or two. They look at companies that they believe are undervalued, cheap, and reliable assets that can and will outperform the market for years to come. If you're asking yourself why Netflix is up about 4% today, it's because of this.
So, Netflix is now worth $77.32 , up 4%. Meta is up 1.5%, still under $600 , it makes no sense at all. Overall, the market is pretty good today, even in the semiconductor sector, it's still very good. We got some good news regarding Iron. In fact, Neo cloud players were in the black early in the day.
Iron is now up 3.2%. They grew by 10% because they delivered the first 50 megawatts of Horizon energy to Microsoft. So I congratulate them. Nebius also rose today, but has now fallen again due to news that emerged regarding Finland. But again, the information that was released is a bit outdated, as those reports mention August 6 and 10 .
And remember, Nebius had an earnings report on August 12th. So they have already informed us that they believe everything is going according to plan. Now let's get back to the main topic of the video, namely this portfolio. So, Bill Ackman's investment thesis is actually very simple. There are several important points here.
First: simple, predictable businesses that generate free cash flow, have strong competitive advantages , minimal debt burden, and minimal dependence on capital markets. Second: the value is equal to the present value of future cash flows. Ekman buys for the business, not for short-term stock fluctuations.
So you might ask, "Why did n't he keep Netflix then?" Apparently, even extremely successful investors like Bill Ackman learn from their mistakes. Third: he selects companies whose earnings per share (EPS) are growing by 15–20% or more per year, and buys them at a price below Pershing Square's intrinsic value estimate.
Fourth: The lack of forced redemptions means that positions can be held for years, sometimes over decades, letting compound interest work for you. And fifth: approximately 2% of the capital invested in hedging "black swans" has provided almost 20% of the total profitability over the entire history of the firm.
If we look at current assets and their metrics, we see Uber, Brookfield, Microsoft, Meta, Restaurant Brands International, Amazon, and Howard Hughes. We'll talk about Howard Hughes assets a little later, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As we can clearly see, the P/E ratio for the next 12 months for many of these companies is not that high.
If you look at the expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of earnings per share over the next 3-5 years, it is very, very attractive, especially compared to the S&P 500. So the six new positions are Visa, Mastercard, Netflix, S&P Global, Intercontinental Exchange, and Alcon. I'll be honest with you, I've never heard of Intercontinental Exchange and Alcon.
And here the trend is also simple. Look at the P/E for the next 12 months: again, these are just analyst expectations: 23 for Visa, 24 for Mastercard, 21 for Netflix , 19 for S&P Global, 17 for Intercontinental Exchange, and 18 for Alcon. Next, if we look at the expected average annual growth rate of earnings per share for 3–5 years: 16% for Visa, 18% for Mastercard, 19% for Netflix, 15% for S&P Global , 15% and 16% for Intercontinental Exchange and Alcon, respectively.
You're starting to understand where this is going, right? They're just looking for exceptionally good, profitable companies that can grow for years and that are expected to outperform the S&P pretty confidently without making you think, "Oh, what's going to happen this quarter?" "What's going to happen that quarter?" No.
They really talked about the current positions, here's a little overview. So , Uber, of course, the second quarter without change since the beginning of the year, this is a decline. They said the following: “ Concerns about self-driving cars and a more complicated relationship with Waymo are weighing on the stock, but earnings are up about 35% this year.
The valuation seems disconnected from fundamentals.” I agree . That's why I own Uber stock. As for Microsoft, it is trading at nearly its lowest multiple in a decade due to concerns about the impact of AI on Microsoft 365 and Azure. Ackman sees the implementation of Co-pilot and the limited Azure offering supporting earnings growth at high- teens percentages.
Of course, they bought Microsoft, I assume, at a lower price than what it is now. As for Brookfield , the company has been caught up in industry-wide concerns about the risks of private lending and asset management. Earnings per share growth is expected to be in the mid- teens or higher as interest income realization accelerates.
Regarding Meta, one of my most bullish positions, under pressure from significant AI capex, and seen as one of the main beneficiaries of AI: advertising growth is at its fastest pace since 2021, with revenue growth expected to exceed 20%. I can't help but agree. As for Restaurant Brands, I don't follow the company much, but they say Burger King's US sales grew 7% and its international business grew 6%, both figures outpacing the competition, on track for 8% profit growth, while the stock is still trading at a discount to its peers.
For Amazon , AWS revenue growth accelerated from 20% to over 30% driven by demand for AI, while retail sales grew 15%, the fastest pace since 2021. In the long term, earnings growth of over 20% is expected. As for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, shares tripled in 2025 on hopes of privatization by the Trump administration, then lost most of those gains this year as no concrete steps were taken.
Pershing Square still believes there is time to go private, and intrinsic value continues to grow as both companies rebuild capital through retained earnings in the meantime. Why did they buy the other six companies? Visa and Mastercard go hand in hand. For Visa, the dominant player in payments, the rating has dropped due to concerns about stablecoins and AI agents, which I believe are overblown.
Regarding Mastercard, almost the same can be said. Netflix, this is a re- entry. The streaming wars were effectively won, and stocks fell about 50% on concerns about audience engagement and AI. They also say that content spending has increased a lot since 2021, while margins have expanded much faster.
And, actually, this is one part of the thesis. S&P Global ratings and oligopolistic franchises were sold off on exaggerated fears of AI-assisted disintermediation. As for the last two, Intercontinental Exchange and Alcon: the former is a company that has been growing for 25 years but has suffered due to fears that perpetual futures would destroy its exchange model.
Alcon is the world's first ophthalmic franchise with a free FDA approval option as an added bonus. I assume that this is a very small fraction for them. The Visa and Mastercard case is essentially this: just look here. The P/E ratio is very attractive for such a business. The expected earnings growth rates for the coming years are also extremely attractive, and they stated the following: fears about stablecoins are overblown, they compete mostly outside the core business of networks, AI agents should expand digital commerce, not bypass networks, and proposals to cap transaction fees that spooked the market have a history.
The thesis regarding Visa and Mastercard here is very simple. Regarding Netflix : they stated the following, the business has over 325 million subscribers, which is almost double that of Disney Plus and HBO Max combined. Content spending has grown by just 2% per year since 2021, while margins have increased from 21% to 31.5% , converting 90% of profits into free cash flow.
The opportunity for them here is that stocks are down 50% from their 2025 highs, price- to-earnings ratios are being revalued, and concerns about AI- video engagement are, in their view, overblown. They stated this: short videos are primarily taking time away from linear television, not Netflix. I would disagree somewhat , and full-length AI videos remain too resource-intensive to threaten its economics anytime soon.
Looking at S&P Global, this is another re-entry, they owned them almost 10 years ago, in 2017, and now they are back after a sell-off caused by fear of AI. Here too, the forward P/E is 19 versus 25, and the expected earnings growth of 15% provides a target annual return of 20%. Let's look at the last two: Intercontinental Exchange and Alcon.
So, the first of them: P/E for the next 12 months is 17 vs. 25, annualized return is 18% since the IPO in 2005, which is an excellent indicator. Institutional traders account for about 95% of Intercontinental's trading volume and have little need for perpetual contracts, which lack the liquidity, fixed funding, and risk protection of Intercontinental's centralized clearing.
Why did they say that? Because stocks fell 21% on concerns that AI could erode smaller segments of data software, and new perpetual crypto-type futures could disrupt exchange- traded funds. Here, the team's opinion is the same: fears about AI are exaggerated. Yes or no, we saw this with the SaaS apocalypse, which of course is now affecting many other areas as well.
The last one here is Alcon. Again, I don't know much about this company. They see a discount as the company's valuation has fallen from the high 20s to around 18 times earnings after disappointing 2025 forecasts raised doubts about Alcon's long-term goals. In this case, they see growth potential. Why?
Margins, currently around 20%, have room to grow to over 25%, and the Phase 3 drug —a name with a bunch of numbers—offers underappreciated growth potential if it gets FDA approval. Again , whenever we talk about companies like this, it's always some kind of option. Of course, the potential is huge, but a good margin of safety is needed here.
Yes, you could call it an option, and I assume it's a very small position for them. Consider Triple H, no, not that guy from WWE, but Howard Hughes Holdings. So, it's a completely different game for them. They view it as a modern-day Berkshire Hathaway. The first step is cash flow from the property.
So, Triple H's real estate business generates approximately $2.5–3 billion in surplus funds over the next 3–5 years. These funds are then sent to the Vantage insurance company . This money is reinvested in Vantage . The insurer, which Triple H acquired in June, invests insurance premiums until claims are paid, which then moves on to the next stage.
Pershing Square is investing in the Ventures portfolio for free, investing in the same high-quality stocks it already owns, plus new leadership from former Ark Capital CEO Odio, who they mentioned here. Under this CEO, Ark delivered a 298% total shareholder return, or 23.2% per year versus 144% for the S&P Insurance Index over about 7 years.
Of course, past successes do not guarantee future successes. Returning to the last step: an efficient insurer with a return on equity of over 20% can be worth 2 times its book value. Pershing Square acquired a stake in Vantage for only 1.4 times book value, so the value should grow faster than the balance sheet itself.
Pershing Square receives 1.5% of any increase in Pershing Square's market capitalization above the inflation-adjusted reference price of $67.67 . If Pershing Square shares grow by 20% per year for 10 years, the fees associated with Pershing Square could increase more than 20 times from current levels.
Of course, every time we hear claims about " creating a modern Berkshire Hathaway," well, we'll have to wait and see if that happens. And lastly, we have Pershing Square Adventures or PSV. What is this? This is a recently launched permanent capital vehicle that gives public market investors access to high- growth companies before IPO, and typically allows PSV to continue to hold them after going public.
This is somewhat similar to what Robinhood does. So, why is this different from many other projects? Typical venture capital and investment funds sooner or later have to sell assets to return capital. PSV has no such deadline and charges fees that are significantly lower than most private venture funds.
How is it financed? It is funded by private investments from Pershing Square's own balance sheet, as well as contributions from individual private assets from Bill Ackman's family office. Experience working with deal flows since 2020 through SPAC firms. Of course, every time we see a SPAC, there are red flags everywhere.
In addition, public market research, such as in the field of AI, helps Pershing Square better understand private companies in the same sector. That's just an added benefit, right? If you want to invest in private companies, first of all, just look at what companies they are buying and then make your decision.
So, in short, what does he do? He looks for great companies with attractive valuations that are expected to grow revenues and profits, companies with a very good margin profile. In this case, I'm looking at Netflix, but we could look at Visa, for example. Visa, Mastercard—again, the same thing, but different, but still the same.
Last year's P/E is 31.2, forward P/E is around 25, and the margin profile is, of course, excellent. So , of course, he's not looking at these super- high-growth companies, let's say, AI stocks that are very attractive right now with 100% growth in a year or something like that. He's looking at Amazon, Meta, Microsoft.
He is mainly looking for stocks of the "magnificent seven", as well as Visa, Mastercard, Netflix - where the multiplier has decreased, but the quality of the business remains at a high level. That makes sense. Many people say, “Oh, that doesn’t make any sense at all. Just buy the S&P 500.” I think these companies will definitely outperform the S&P 500 for many years to come .
Of course, some may disagree about some of these companies, especially Uber or Netflix, but I own them so I'm biased, but I think they're undervalued. I really think they are underrated. We'll see how things develop, of course, but you're buying them today at these prices. Of course, these are not AI-related companies right now, and these are not very high beta assets.
These are solid companies, profitable companies generating billions of dollars in free cash flow, and they are expected to grow faster than the market for many years to come. So this portfolio, to me, is structured in a way that AI can definitely help and is already helping many of these companies, but if, say, the sentiment around AI changes, or investors start looking for value instead of hypergrowth, these are the companies that could get some upside and see their forward multiples expand.
As I said from the beginning, I own shares of Meta, Google, Amazon, Uber, and Netflix. Maybe Bill watches our channel, who knows. If Bill wants to come on the channel and discuss all this, he is a very welcome guest as well. So, in general, that's all. We will be getting a lot more 13F reports from super investors in the coming days, these will be preliminary steps, not exactly fresh, but we will cover everything we can.
Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Let me know what you think about all of this, and I'll see you in the next video. See you later.
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