5 Cheap Stocks to Buy According to Bill Ackman

2. Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HHH)

Pershing Square’s Stake: $1.1 billion

Forward P/S Ratio: 2.56

Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HHH) is a real estate development company. Its shares are down by 5.7% over the past year and by 15% year-to-date. With the real estate sector in turmoil, the firm has been busy reinventing itself. On this front, June has been a crucial month for Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HHH) as it completed its acquisition of specialty insurer Vantage Group for a $2.1 billion all-cash offer. Vantage is a diversified insurance company that operates in the insurance and reinsurance sectors. As part of the deal, Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HHH) also injected $200 million in cash into Vantage in order to beef up the latter’s balance sheet.

During the first quarter earnings call, the firm’s management asserted that the deal served as a validation of its balance sheet and strategy. Pershing Square also played a key role in the deal. It bought $1 billion of Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HHH)’s non-voting exchangeable perpetual preferred stock. During the call, Ackman remarked that Pershing and the real estate firm did not have operational experience in the insurance industry and added that “it is an industry where you can make a lot of money and it is an industry where you can lose a lot of money if you do not know what you are doing.”