Contrarian Corpus
activist full deck follow up
2017-01-26 · 95 pages

Multiple (PSH portfolio update)

N 3 Narrative
V 3 Visual
C 3 Craft
Original source ↗

The three reasons

  1. 1

    Long-term track record intact: 503% cumulative vs S&P 163% since 2004 inception

  2. 2

    Portfolio companies executing: MDLZ margins +250bps, APD EPS +14%, QSR EBITDA +16%

  3. 3

    Herbalife thesis validated by FTC injunction and $200mm consumer redress

Primary demands

  • Continue Mondelez margin expansion toward 17-18% by 2018 with further upside
  • Continue Air Products transformation under CEO Seifi Ghasemi
  • Reform Fannie & Freddie with higher capital and regulatory oversight
  • Maintain Herbalife short as FTC permanent injunction forces business-model restructuring

KPIs cited

PSH 2016 net return
-13.5% vs S&P 500 +11.9%
Cumulative net return since 2004 inception
Pershing Square LP 503.1% vs S&P 500 163.4%
Mondelez EBIT margin
15.4% in 2016 vs peer median ~18-19%, Kraft Heinz 27.6%
Mondelez 2018 margin target
17-18%, up from 15-16% in 2016
Air Products FY16 EPS
$7.55, +14% YoY despite 3% FX headwind
Air Products operating margin
Improved 400 bps to 23.1%
QSR organic EBITDA growth 2016
16%
Tim Hortons EBITDA margin improvement
+600 bps
Herbalife FTC settlement
$200mm to 350,000 victims
Valeant 2016 attribution
(19.2%) of PSH return
CP total return since inception
+244% (3.44x) from average cost
Total AUM
$10.98bn at 12/31/2016

Pattern membership

Where this document fits across the library's 12 rhetorical / structural patterns.

Notable slides (7)

Notes

LP annual update for Pershing Square Holdings covering 2016 (presented Jan 26, 2017); filename date prefix '2016-02' is misleading — cover is 1/26/2017. Multi-position portfolio recap rather than single-target activist thesis. Covers MDLZ, APD, QSR, Howard Hughes, Chipotle (undisclosed), Fannie/Freddie, Valeant, Platform Specialty, Nomad, Herbalife (short), plus exits CP and Zoetis. Pitched against a brutal two-year drawdown (-21% 2015, -13.5% 2016) largely from Valeant; Ackman uses long-term cumulative returns and portfolio-by-portfolio business progress as the defensive narrative. Strong use of annotated share-price timelines tying catalyst events to price (slides 22/23, 28/29, 33/34, 86). Herbalife section cites FTC complaint verbatim as third-party vindication of the pyramid-scheme thesis. Campaign phase set to follow_up because each sub-thesis had been publicly disclosed earlier (MDLZ 2015, APD 2013, Herbalife 2012, Fannie/Freddie 2014).