Bill Ackman lost a huge bet on…himself

You can get rich and then become Twitter famous…but it’s hard to use your Twitter fame to get richer. That’s what billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman learned this week as he called off his highly anticipated IPO, which had been highly anticipated by him only, due to a lack of investor enthusiasm.

How it went down: Ackman wanted to bring his hedge fund Pershing Square to the NYSE, giving regular investors a way to access the fund’s riches and thereby cementing himself as a Warren Buffett-esque figure.

• In a regulatory filing, Ackman said investor interest would come from his “brand-name profile” and “broad retail following,” presumably referencing his 1.3 million followers on X—a number that’s grown in recent months as he’s been more vocal about politics, including his recent endorsement of former President Trump.

• The IPO originally targeted a $25 billion price before Ackman lowered it to $4 billion and then again to $2 billion, before dropping it altogether.

Why’d it crash and burn? Memes will only take you so far. Investors believed the fund would trade at a discount after going public, giving them no reason to invest early.

Watch this space. Ackman said he would reconsider the IPO’s structure and “report back once we are ready to launch a revised transaction.”—CC