Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is abandoning his use of aggressive activist campaigns to publicly shame company boards and executives to bring about change and bolster share prices, he said in an annual report to investors.
Pershing Square Capital Management’s founder said on Tuesday that he planned to be a less vocal shareholder, buying large blocks of publicly traded companies and working behind the scenes with companies on any concerns or strategies.
The change formalises a giant shift in the way Ackman invests after he made his name on Wall Street running bruising campaigns against companies such as retailer JCPenney, payrolls provider ADP and Canadian Pacific Railway.