Pershing Square Portfolio (multiple positions)
Pershing Square's 2015 portfolio recap: 9 positions led by the Allergan win, new Valeant stake, ongoing CP/APD transformations, and the Herbalife pyramid-scheme short.
Thesis
Pershing Square's April 2015 European investor meeting recaps a 9-position concentrated portfolio that returned 5.9% YTD and 722.9% since 2004 inception. The standout is Allergan, where Pershing's JV with Valeant ultimately produced an Actavis takeout at $242/share — an 88% premium to its $128 cost basis — and the firm has now redeployed into Valeant itself at ~$197 average. Long positions span pharma (Valeant, Zoetis), industrials (Canadian Pacific under Hunter Harrison, Air Products under new CEO Seifi Ghasemi), real estate (Howard Hughes), restaurants (Restaurant Brands International), specialty chemicals (Platform), and the GSE Net Worth Sweep litigation (Fannie/Freddie). The lone short, Herbalife, is reaffirmed as a pyramid scheme with deteriorating volume points and a maturing $1bn credit facility constraining buyback options.
The three reasons
- 1
Pershing Square LP returned 722.9% since 2004 vs S&P 500 at 134.3%
- 2
Allergan campaign closed at $242 — 88% above Pershing's $128 cost basis
- 3
Diversified 9-position portfolio of operational turnarounds, governance plays, and one Herbalife pyramid-scheme short
Primary demands
- Continue operational transformation at Canadian Pacific under Hunter Harrison toward 58-63% Operating Ratio and $17 EPS by 2018
- Execute Air Products margin expansion plan from ~15.5% to ~22.5% EBIT under new CEO Seifi Ghasemi
- Force regulatory action against Herbalife as a pyramid scheme
- Reverse the GSE Net Worth Sweep on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
KPIs cited
Pattern membership
Precedents cited
- CN transformation under Hunter Harrison (template for CP)
- Praxair (peer benchmark for Air Products margins)
- Rockwood under Seifi Ghasemi (320% TSR vs S&P 106%)
- Mike Pearson's Valeant tenure (42x TSR since 2008 CEO appointment)
Composition what's on the 67 slides
Slide gallery ·
Notes
Fund-level annual investor update (European investor meeting), not a single-target campaign deck — classified as follow_up per guidance. Standard Pershing template: navy headers, colored section banners (blue/green/red/orange), annotated price-journey charts repeated for each position. Recurring rhetorical pattern: 'X% from inception, Y% from average cost basis prior to position being made public' framing on every position. Notable craft: the annotated stock-price-since-inception chart pattern (slides 12, 17, 23, 28, 32, 35, 38, 41, 44, 47-49) is a signature Pershing storytelling device — milestone callouts plotted against the price line. Herbalife section uses CEO-quote-contradiction (Gratziani 'inauthenticity' quote). No SCQA or single closing ask because the deck is a fund-wide recap rather than a thesis presentation.