Outspoken billionaire Bill Ackman reportedly raked in $610 million in 2023 to land in the top 10 on Bloomberg’s annual list of best-paid hedge fund founders, the outlet reported Tuesday.
The Pershing Square Capital Management CEO — who spearheading a social media campaign to get Harvard University president Claudine Gay ousted over her muted response to antisemitism on the Ivy League school’s campus and over her subsequent plagiarism charges — managed to finish seventh on Bloomberg’s list last year after failing to crack the top 15 the year before.
Ackman, who gained prominence as an activist investor, shifted to a “quieter approach” two years ago and barely touched his portfolio of just 10 stocks to record his massive haul, as calculated by Bloomberg after analyzing top hedge funds’ performance as well as Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
With the stock market roaring last year, his eight-person advisory investment team helped the firm earn 26.7% gain across its positions, which include Google parent Alphabet, Chipotle and Hilton Worldwide, Bloomberg reported.
Ackman’s returns topped those of Citadel’s main Wellington strategy and Millennium Management, which saw their portfolios advance 15.3% and nearly 10%, respectively, despite their founders bringing in a larger windfall than Ackman.
Millennium founder Israel “Izzy” Englander, the highest earner on Bloomberg’s hedge fund boss’ pay ranking, made $2.8 billion in 2023, while Citadel’s Ken Griffin nabbed the No. 2 spot thanks to his $2.6 billion income.
David Tepper of Appaloosa was third at $2.3 billion and Mets owner Steve Cohen was fourth, with his Point72 Asset Management earning $1.6 billion.
The 15 managers on Bloomberg’s list — which also included Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, David Siegel of Two Sigma and AQR Capital Management’s Cliff Asness — earned a combined $15 billion.
Roughly one-third of Ackman’s 2023 haul came from share-price gains in his publicly traded Pershing Square Holdings funds, according to Bloomberg.
The other two-thirds of the 57-year-old’s earnings came from performance gains at his private funds as well as fees charged to clients.
In one of his biggest moves in recent years, Ackman exited his six-year bet on Lowe’s earlier this month after the home improvement retailer earned more than $1 billion for Pershing Square’s investors, Ackman wrote in an investor update.
Pershing Square also holds positions in Toronto-based Burger King-owner Restaurant Brands International, Universal Music Group, real-estate development company Howard Hughes Holdings and railway firm Canadian Pacific.
Representatives for Ackman at Pershing Square declined to comment.
Fellow hedge fund boss Chris Hohn of TCI Fund Management also scored big on a 10-US stock holdings portfolio.
Hohn — who, unlike Ackman, remains out of the spotlight — earned nearly $1 billion, per Bloomberg’s calculations.
Just two of his positions — General Electric Co. and Canadian National Railway — comprised more than a quarter of his holdings, which gained 33% last year, Bloomberg reported.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
