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

Pershing Square Holdings Portfolio (multiple) PSH

The three reasons

  1. 1

    2016 losses of -13.5% were driven overwhelmingly by Valeant; balance of portfolio performed well

  2. 2

    Remaining holdings are high-quality businesses (MDLZ, APD, QSR, CMG) with clear operational catalysts and margin upside

  3. 3

    Key wins in 2016: MDLZ margins +250bps, APD +400bps, CP exited at +244%, FTC injunction against Herbalife

Primary demands

  • Mondelez: execute margin expansion to 17-18% by 2018 and toward best-in-class peers thereafter
  • Air Products: continue Seifi Ghasemi's transformation and deploy $2.6bn from divestiture proceeds
  • Chipotle: complete governance refresh and operational recovery from food-safety crisis
  • Valeant: execute asset sales and operational turnaround under new CEO Joe Papa with Pershing board representation
  • Herbalife (short): enforce FTC permanent injunction restructuring the US business model
  • Fannie/Freddie: recapitalize and release under new administration per Mnuchin's stated priorities

KPIs cited

PSH 2016 net return
-13.5% vs S&P 500 +11.9%
PSH 2015 net return
-20.5% vs S&P 500 +1.4%
Cumulative net return since inception (Jan 2004)
Pershing Square L.P. 503.1% vs S&P 500 163.4% through 12/31/2016
Total Strategy AUM
$10,982mm as of 12/31/2016 across PSLP, PSI, PSH, PSII
Valeant 2016 attribution
(19.2%) — single largest drag to gross returns
Mondelez 2016 EBIT margin
~15.5% (+250bps YoY); 2018 target 17-18% with further 600-700bps upside to optimized level; vs Kraft Heinz 27.6%
Air Products FY2016 EPS
$7.55, +14% despite 3% FX headwind; operating margin +400bps to 23.1%
FNMA/FMCC 2016 share performance
+138% / +131% respectively; +66% / +73% since Pershing cost basis
Herbalife FTC action
$200mm redress to ~350,000 victims; 'top to bottom' US restructuring required to 'start complying with the law'
Canadian Pacific since inception (exited)
+244% (3.44x) from average cost through 8/4/2016 full exit
Zoetis since inception (exited)
+40% including dividends from average cost through 11/9/2016 exit

Pattern membership

Where this document fits across the library's 12 rhetorical / structural patterns. Orange cells are present in this deck; neutral cells are not.

Slide gallery ·

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Pass-2 extraction may still be in progress for this deck.

Notes

Fund-level annual investor update delivered at the trough of Pershing Square's historic drawdown — back-to-back negative years (-20.5% in 2015, -13.5% in 2016) driven almost entirely by Valeant. Not a single-target campaign deck; per-position updates across MDLZ (~16%), QSR (~17%), APD (~13%), HHC, CMG, two undisclosed, FNMA/FMCC, VRX, PAH, Nomad, and HLF short (~-9%). thesis_one_liner / thesis_summary / SCQA set to null per guidance for fund updates with no single thesis. Post-Valeant reframe: emphasizes operational progress at other holdings; no dedicated Valeant apology slide, just 'obtained board representation to assist turnaround'. Herbalife section most adversarial — argues FTC Complaint 'substantially agrees' with pyramid-scheme thesis. Uses Mnuchin quotes as catalyst (supporting, not contradiction). CP since-inception annotated stock chart on p.86 is the classic 'victory lap' artifact. Visual: standard Pershing Square institutional template (blue headers, colored banner boxes, clean but not craft-heavy) — 3 rather than 4.