Contrarian Corpus
activist full deck
2021-02-18 · 57 pages

Pershing Square Holdings (own fund) PSH

N 2 Narrative
V 3 Visual
C 2 Craft
Original source ↗

The three reasons

  1. 1

    PSH returned 70.2% NAV / 84.8% TSR in 2020, beating S&P by 5,180 bps

  2. 2

    CDS index hedges generated $2.6bn proceeds against just $27mm in carrying costs

  3. 3

    Hedging gains redeployed at March lows generated 87% return on $1.95bn core reinvestment

KPIs cited

PSH NAV return 2020
70.2% net, highest since strategy inception in 2004
Total shareholder return 2020
84.8% on Euronext Amsterdam shares
Outperformance vs S&P 500
5,180 bps in 2020 (PSH 70.2% vs S&P 18.4%)
Discount to NAV
narrowed from 28.9% to 23.0% as of Feb 16, 2021
Compound annual return since 2004
16.9% PSLP/PSH vs 9.6% S&P 500
CDS hedge notional
$70.7bn total notional generating $2.6bn proceeds
Share buybacks 2020
$286mm at avg $20.81 / 32% discount to NAV; 6.6% of public shares retired
Total debt to assets
17.7% with laddered maturities to 2039
Total AUM
$13.6bn across PSH/PSLP/PSI as of 2/16/2021
Cumulative net return since inception
1,330% PSLP/PSH vs 377% S&P 500 (1/1/2004 - 12/31/2020)

Pattern membership

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

Notable slides (6)

Notes

This is a fund-level annual investor presentation to PSH shareholders, NOT a target-specific contrarian campaign deck. Structure: chairman intro, 2020 performance review, business update, portfolio holdings recap (Lowe's, Chipotle, Agilent, Hilton, QSR, HHC, Starbucks, Fannie/Freddie). The closest thing to a 'thesis' is the implicit argument that PSH trades at an unwarranted discount to NAV (narrowed from 28.9% to 23.0%). Headline narrative is the COVID CDS hedge trade — $27mm carry cost generated $2.6bn proceeds, then redeployed at March lows for 87% return on core reinvestment ($1.95bn → $3.65bn). Standard PSH template: blue/green/red colored callout banners, dense bullets, line/bar charts with annotated event boxes. No villain, no demands, no breakup math. Several slides intentionally blank/section-divider only (4, 16, 26, 37, 54). Campaign_phase set to 'unknown' since this is not a campaign document.