Born on 11th May 1966, William Albert Ackman, in New York was born to parents Ronnie and Lawrence Ackman, the latter being the chairman of a real estate financing firm.
Graduated from Harvard College and then MBA from Harvard Business School, in 1992 founded the investment firm, Gotham Partners. The firm invested in public securities. Later, also partnered with an insurance and a real estate firm Leucadia National made a bid for Rockefeller Centre, which did not face success.
Later, Ackman Jr. also challenged Municipal Bond Insurance Asociation’s AAA rating (basically this bond being the safest investment category).
In 2004, he started his own hedge fund called Pershing Square Capital Management with $54 million as capital. The fund has invested in number of companies like Target corporation, Wendy’s International, Border’s Group etc.
Ackman has always been known as a contrarian but he considers himself to be an activist investor (those who take big enough positions in company to make a change). According to him, the first rule of activist investing is to make bold calls that nobody believes in.
