Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman is readying Pershing Square and a new fund to go public

The billionaire investor plans to orchestrate a double public offering as soon as early next year, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday night, citing people familiar with the matter. 

The company filed a prospectus early last year for a new investment fund, Pershing Square USA. But it failed to materialize due to weak investor interest, and now he’s trying again.

This time around, The Journal reported Ackman has sweetened the deal for investors who put money into the new fund by offering free shares of Pershing Square, which would also go public. Partners of the firm would give away up to 10% of their shares, the report said.

The Financial Timesreported earlier on Friday that Ackman was readying Pershing Square’s public listing, but did not mention plans for the Pershing Square USA fund to go public as well.

Two people briefed on the matter told the FT that Ackman had begun preliminary talks with advisors about Pershing Square’s listing plans, which could come as early as the first quarter of 2026. They cautioned that they were early-stage conversations subject to change or be abandoned depending on market conditions. 

Pershing Square declined to comment to Fortune and hasn’t publicly commented on the matter in other reports.

Pershing Square USA would be a closed-end fund, meaning it sells a fixed number of shares in a public offering. Shareholders can leave the fund only by selling their stakes to other investors at the current market price, no matter what the fund’s actual asset value is.

After filing the prospectus in early 2024, Ackman ended funding for Pershing Square USA and withdrew its IPO in July of that year, as lack of investor interest made him scale back its size from $25 billion to $2 billion.

Ackman founded Pershing Square in 2004, with initial capital from his own funds and backing from diversified holding company Leucadia National, which has been renamed to Jefferies Financial Group.

Once known for activism, the hedge fund has since transitioned its strategy to focus on concentrated stakes in big public companies. It had over $21.4 billion in core assets as of October.

Pershing Square recently bought nearly half of real-estate firm Howard Hughes Holdings. Ackman has said his bid for the company would make it “a modern-day Berkshire Hathaway.”