Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Returns 32.8% in 2014

Pershing Square managed by Bill Ackman is the top performing hedge fund as monitored by Bloomberg, Jonathan Ferro reports on Bloomberg’s On The Move.

Bill Ackman and his fund Pershing Square were in headlines this year partly for the investor’s crusade against Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF).

“2014 was also a very good year for activist investor Bill Ackman. According to Bloomberg’s rankings of top performing hedge funds for last year, Ackman’s Pershing square took the number one spot. The fund returned a solid 32.8% on investment last year,” Ferro said.

The impressive performance of Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square comes after just 9.3% return on investment in 2013.

Aside from the news about Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square, Bloomberg’s Jonathan Ferro also said that BMW AG has agreed to pay its distributors in China a total of $820 million. According to the reporter, the subsidy is aimed to help distributors of the German car maker in the country to cover losses.

BMW AG has been deluged by complaints from its dealers in China of being unable to meet targets. Before the subsidy was announced, dealers in the country stopped ordering cars.

Meanwhile, Ferro also said that job openings in the financial services sector in London went up 18% in 2014. As a results, 33,000 job posts were available in the City and Canary Wharf last year, he said.

In the last quarter of the year alone, hiring in London’s financial services companies went up 22%, Ferro added.

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square held a total of about $13.43 billion by the end of September. Their largest holding by the end of the third quarter is Allergan, Inc. (NYSE:AGN) at about 28.88 million shares valued then at about $5.15 billion making up 38.32% of the institutional investor’s whole portfolio.