Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Prices Its IPO Today. Here's What Investors Need to Know.

Pershing Square prices its dual NYSE IPO at $50 per share on April 28, targeting up to $10 billion combined. Zero performance fees and a 12-month management fee waiver headline the offer — but a 27% NAV discount on the existing fund is the risk investors need to understand.

Daniel Kim·April 28, 2026·8 min read

AI Summary

Pershing Square prices its dual IPO at $50 per share on April 28, with NYSE trading beginning April 29. The combined target of up to $10 billion includes $2.8 billion already secured from institutional investors. Zero performance fees and a 12-month management fee waiver distinguish the offering — but PSH trades at a 27% NAV discount, a structural risk that could replay with PSUS.

Bill Ackman is trying again. Pershing Square Capital Management prices its IPO today, April 28, with shares set to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow. The public offering price is $50 per share. Combined with $2.8 billion already secured from family offices, pension funds, and insurers, the total fundraising target ranges from $5 billion to $10 billion.

In 2024, Ackman attempted the same trade. He started with a $25 billion target, cut it to $2 billion, then pulled the deal entirely. This time, he locked in anchor capital first and set a more realistic range before going public.

Two Securities, One Offering

The structure is unusual. Two separate securities list simultaneously on the NYSE.

Pershing Square USA (PSUS) is a closed-end fund that will invest in 12 to 15 concentrated positions in large-cap North American equities. All IPO proceeds flow directly into PSUS. Pershing Square Inc. (PSI), ticker PS, is the management company itself — the entity that earns fees and runs the fund. PSI receives no IPO proceeds.

The incentive structure ties the two together: investors who buy 100 shares of PSUS at IPO receive 20 shares of PSI at no additional cost. Partners will distribute up to 10% of PSI shares. The five bookrunners are Citigroup, UBS, Bank of America, Jefferies, and Wells Fargo.

The Fee Structure Is the Pitch

Most hedge funds charge a "2-and-20" structure: 2% annual management fee plus 20% of profits. PSUS charges neither a performance fee nor a management fee for the first 12 months. After that, the annual management fee is 2% of NAV. Performance fee: zero.

Pershing Square Capital Management is investing $500 million of its own capital alongside investors.

The track record underpinning the pitch belongs to Pershing Square Holdings (PSH), the existing European-listed fund. In 2025, PSH posted NAV growth of 20.9% and total shareholder return of 33.9%. Since inception, cumulative gains total $23.3 billion. The eight-year NAV compound annual growth rate is 23%.

One important distinction: PSH and PSUS are separate vehicles. Past PSH performance does not guarantee PSUS results.

Ackman's Market Case

On the IPO roadshow, Ackman argued that shares of the world's best businesses are currently trading at historically cheap prices. He suggested that geopolitical uncertainty — including the Iran conflict — may actually benefit Pershing Square's acquisition program by creating entry points that would not exist in calmer markets.

The existing PSH portfolio, as of March 2025, reflects this concentrated approach: Brookfield Corporation (BN) at 18.15%, Uber (UBER) at 15.9%, Amazon (AMZN) at 14.28%, Alphabet (GOOGL) at 13.83%, and Meta (META) at 11.37%. PSUS is expected to follow a similar construction.

The Risk That Doesn't Go Away

Closed-end funds trade on exchanges like stocks, which means the market price can diverge from the underlying net asset value. PSH, the existing Pershing Square fund listed in Europe, currently trades at approximately a 27% discount to NAV.

That discount is structural, not incidental. It reflects the market's skepticism about closed-end fund liquidity and the ongoing cost of management fees compounding over time. An investor who buys PSUS at $50 in the IPO could find the shares trading below that price shortly after listing — not because the portfolio declined, but because the market applied its standard discount to the vehicle.

Additional risks include minority shareholder litigation related to Howard Hughes Holdings (HHH), where Ackman has rejoined the board and is steering a pivot toward a Berkshire Hathaway-style diversified holding company. PSH invested $900 million in HHH in May 2025 and committed up to $1 billion in preferred equity to support the Vantage insurance acquisition.

The $2.8 Billion Already in the Room

Anchor investors include family offices (approximately 30% of the pre-committed capital), pension funds, insurers, and named institutions: ICONIQ, Arch Capital Group, BTG Pactual, Menora Mivtachim, and Consulta.

That pre-commitment matters. In 2024, the absence of firm anchor capital was part of what unraveled the deal. This time, Ackman comes to the pricing table with more than half his minimum target already secured.