He’s the man who scared America witless by claiming in a teary-eyed rant that coronavirus would bring ‘hell’ to the country — and then calmly raked in a whopping $2.6 billion as his dire prediction helped cause the markets to collapse.
Hedge fund boss Bill Ackman, 53, has suddenly found himself among the most hated men in the country after his bet against the market netted him a 10,000% profit on his initial investment of $27 million.
But it was his phone interview on CNBC — where he choked up when he talked about how the virus could kill his elderly father — that helped cause the crash. Forbes labeled his intervention ‘The Billionaire Interview That Tanked The Stock Market.’
Ackman is on his second marriage — to glamorous MIT professor Neri Oxman, 44, (pictured together in 2019) who was once linked to Brad Pitt. They had their first child last year
US Weekly said Pitt was ‘absolutely smitten’ by Oxman, an award-winning architectural designer in 2018. ‘Their chemistry is off the charts.’ The magazine said the two had been ‘quietly dating’ after Pitt had admired her 3D-printed chaises lounges in an exhibition at MIT
It noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,000 points when he went on the air. ‘It hit a circuit breaker as he spouted dark doom and gloom, then closed for 15 minutes. When it reopened, it was down 2,000-plus.’
MSNBC’s Senior Business Correspondent Stephanie Ruhle called his interview ‘wildly irresponsible.’
‘In putting on that grand show while he was getting choked up talking about his father, he caused the markets to puke and he caused the circuit breakers to trigger,’ Ruhle added.
‘Why (would) Bill Ackman, who maybe has the right idea or very good intentions, put on such a ridiculous show and cause such damage to an already panicked market?’ she asked.
‘That’s what’s puzzling.’
Now, though, the world knows. While the markets were in free-fall, Ackman, 53, was laughing all the way to the bank.
But it’s not the first time the boss of Pershing Square Capital — who is married to a glamorous professor who was once linked to Brad Pitt — has found himself at the center of controversy.
He nearly broke the diet product company Herbalife when he got in a public fight claiming the company was nothing more than a ‘sophisticated pyramid scheme.’
He spent three hours at an investment conference explaining why Herbalife would fail.
For six years he waged war against the Los Angeles-based company, most famously in a CNBC interview alongside legendary investor Carl Icahn, Herbalife’s principal shareholder.
Ackman was raised in the well-to-do town of Chappaqua, north of New York City, where Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ben Stiller and Vanessa Williams now make their homes. His father was head of a real estate financing firm. Ackman’s homes are spectacular, including two apartments in a luxury building overlooking Central Park (pictured)
‘Carl Icahn unfortunately does not have a good reputation for being a handshake guy,’ Ackman said.
Icahn shot back: ‘I wouldn’t invest with you if you were the last man on Earth!’
Eventually Ackman ended his feud with Herbalife in 2018 when the company stock was more double what he had shorted it at.
The fight between Ackman and Herbalife was even made into a 2016 documentary film, Betting On Zero.
William Albert Ackman was raised in the well-to-do town of Chappaqua, north of New York City, where Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ben Stiller and Vanessa Williams now make their homes. His father was head of a real estate financing firm.
He went to Harvard College and then received an MBA from Harvard Business School.
He founded Gotham Partners with fellow Harvard graduate David Berkowitz in 1992 and stirred things up by making an ultimately unsuccessful bid to buy Rockefeller Center.
He was known as a rabble-rouser with an unconventional approach — he once spent an afternoon flipping burgers at a Florida McDonald’s trying to confirm his view that the company should get out of the restaurant business and go solely into franchising.
He also owns three combined properties in the Hamptons on Long Island (pictured)
He fell afoul of New York’s Wall Street-bashing Attorney General Elliot Spitzer in the early 2000s after shorting stock in the bond insurance company MBIA.
Both Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated in highly publicized cases. ‘We put him through the wringer,’ Spitzer said at the time.
Though he was never charged, the publicity affected Ackman.
‘People look at you funny,’ he said.
‘I learned it takes a lifetime to build a reputation, and someone can destroy it in a few days.’
He decided to change tack and launched Pershing Square in 2004.
One of his early investments was in Wendy’s — and he immediately pressured the burger company to spin off its doughnut chain Tim Horton’s, a controversial move that investors said left Wendy’s as just a second-rate burger company without its fast-growing side business.
In a 2008 profile in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune Tim Nantell, a finance professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, called him ‘a greedy capitalist.’
‘But greedy capitalists look around for companies that are not getting every dollar out of a company they should be and they push them to be more efficient. It’s how the system works,’ Nantell added.
In 2009 Ackman defended Ezra Merkin, an associate of Ponzi-scheme fraudster Bernie Madoff. ‘Has Ezra committed a crime? I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I think he is an honest person, an intelligent person, an interesting person, a smart investor.’
Merkin was later charged with fraud for steering billions into Madoff’s funds and had to pay $405 million in a settlement.
Ackman is on his second marriage — to glamorous MIT professor Neri Oxman, 44, who was once linked to Brad Pitt. They had their first child last year. He had three kids with first wife, landscape architect Karen Herskovitz before their union crumbled in 2016.
US Weekly said Pitt was ‘absolutely smitten’ by Oxman, an award-winning architectural designer in 2018.
‘Their chemistry is off the charts.’
The magazine said the two had been ‘quietly dating’ after Pitt had admired her 3D-printed chaises lounges in an exhibition at MIT.
Ackman’s homes are spectacular, a two-story penthouse on Manhattan’s West Side, three combined properties in the Hamptons on Long Island and two apartments in a luxury building overlooking Central Park, where residents have included Jerry Seinfeld, Diana Ross, Glenn Close and John McEnroe.
The combined values of the properties is estimated at around $165 million.
Ackman brought panic when he went on CNBC to discuss the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. He urged all world leaders to go on an immediate 30-day lockdown.
‘America will end as we know it — I’m sorry to say so — unless we take this option,’ he said in the interview with CNBC on March 18.
The combined values of the properties is estimated at around $165 million. Pictured: The building where the hedge fund boss owns a two-story penthouse on Manhattan’s West Side
‘Hell is coming,’ he warned.
The ‘only answer for the world is to shut the world for 30 days,’ he added.
‘We have an invisible, silent, deadly enemy. How do we kill it? Everyone just goes home.’
He claimed the sacrifice was small compared to previous generations. ‘(President Donald Trump) is not saying storm the beaches at Normandy. He’s saying’ ‘Go home. Spend a month with your family’
Earlier he had tweeted a message to Trump.
‘Mr. President, the only answer is to shut down the country for the next 30 days and close the borders. Tell all Americans that you are putting us on an extended Spring Break at home with family. Keep only essential services open. The government pays wages until we reopen.’
But while he was urging everyone to take a break, Ackman was hard at work putting his money where his mouth was.
In late February he gambled that the virus really would bring about a huge downturn in the markets.
He spent $27 million buying portfolio protection, focusing on credit markets buying products that would protect his fund in the event of a massive downturn in equity markets.
And while the markets lost up to 30 percent of their value before this week’s rebound, Ackman was raking in billions.