Hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman is seeking to revive his botched IPO of Pershing Square USA by offering juicy incentives to early investors, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
The 58-year-old tycoon nixed plans to float his highly-touted new fund on the New York Stock Exchange last month after investor demand fell short of his lofty expectations.
Ackman has now held fresh talks, according to the FT, about a revamped structure that would throw in the chance to buy extra shares for those early investors at a fixed price.
The British financial newspaper, quoting two people familiar with the matter, also reported that initial backers could also be given the chance to buy stock when his main investment vehicle, Pershing Square Capital Management, goes public.
The Wall Street titan wants to relaunch the Pershing Square IPO before the end of this year, the FT reported.
The Post has reached out to a spokesperson for Ackman for comment.
The initial idea behind Pershing Square USA was to create a so-called closed-end fund, meaning shareholders can only pull back if someone else buys their stock.
Ackman — who has a net worth of $9.1 billion, according to Forbes — had first set a whopping $25 billion investment target, trying to woo potential investors by waiving 2% management fees for the first year of trading.
He had pledged to toss in some $500 million from his hedge fund to put into the new venture.
The idea was to drum up enough funds to acquire large minority positions in 12 to 15 large-cap North American companies.
But he was forced to slash that goal by over 90% to just $2 billion before he eventually pulled the plug on the idea.
Ackman — a Harvard graduate who has been vocal on social media about his support for former President Donald Trump — sold a 10% stake in Pershing Square Capital Management in June to investors including San Francisco’s Iconiq Capital and Israeli insurance company Menora Mivtachim in a deal that valued the hedge fund at $10.5 billion.
Then earlier this month, Ackman’s firm disclosed in regulatory filings that it was mulling a deal to take the Howard Hughes real estate firm private.
Ackman’s firn is the largest shareholder in the South Street Seaport developer with a 38% stake.
His fund has returned 16.5% a year.
Ackman, who has more than one million followers on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, has been using his newfound online clout to generate a buzz about his Pershing Square USA plans.
But the top investor has also weighed in on a wider range of topics such as the forthcoming presidential election and the state of higher education in the United States.
Earlier this year, he led a campaign criticizing Harvard University after turmoil over practices related to antisemitism, plagiarism and financial management.
Ackman rose to prominence in 2012 with a disastrous $1 billion short of Herbalife, the dietary supplements firm, with rival activist Carl Icahn taking an opposite stance on the company’s future.
The pair then had an infamous row live on CNBC over the issue the following year.
