Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Holdings (LSE:PSH) USA opened at $42 on its New York Stock Exchange debut, falling 16% below its IPO price of $50, marking a rocky start to a listing that had been years in the making.
The stumble comes after Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager, had spent years publicly building the case for a closed-end fund modeled on the empire of Warren Buffett, and even after raising $5 billion for the venture.
Pershing Square USA, which trades under the ticker PSUS, is a closed-end vehicle that lists concurrently with Pershing Square, which trades under the ticker PS. Investors receive one share of PS for every five shares of PSUS purchased.
The fund plans to hold positions in 12 to 15 cash-generating large-cap North American companies.
The disappointing open represents another test for Ackman, who had previously cancelled a planned public listing of Pershing Square USA in 2024 in what was widely seen as an embarrassing reversal before ultimately reviving the offering.