It’s official. William Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, has unloaded all of his 39.1 million shares in J.C. Penney. Just a little over a month ago, at Institutional Investor’s Delivering Alpha conference, Ackman said he could make 15 times his money on the stock. According to reports, Ackman sold the shares for between $12.50 and $12.90 per share, well below Monday’s close of $13.35. Ackman paid an average price of $25 for his shares, which he bought in 2010 and 2011. This works out to a loss of about $500 million for the activist manager. The stock closed Tuesday at $13.13.
Meanwhile, Ackman’s other high profile disaster—a short sale of Herbalife—fell 3.7 percent, to close at $62.58. However, it still remains slightly off its all-time high.
Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital filed three 13G’s late Monday indicating the firm owns sizable passive stakes. According to the filings, the Tiger Cub bought roughly one million shares of airplane supplier B/E Aerospace, boosting its stake to 5.3 million shares, or 5 percent of its total outstanding. In a separate form, Lone Pine disclosed that it bought about 4.1 million shares of discount chain store Dollar General, raising its total to nearly 17.7 million shares or 5.4 percent of the total. The third filings shows that Lone Pine bought more than 100,000 shares of footwear retailer DSW, boosting its total stake to a little more than 2 million shares, or 5.6 percent of its total outstanding.
Others who’ve just filed 13G’s include Dan Gold’s QVT. The firm owns nearly 1.68 million shares of biopharmaceutical company, Retrophin, or 7.8 percent of the total outstanding. All of the shares were bought after the second quarter. And Ken Griffin’s Citadel reported it now owns a 5.2 percent passive stake in Accuray, a maker and seller of medical radiation systems to treat tumors. A 13G filing shows that a fund owns between 5 to 20 percent of a company but intends to be a passive investor rather than trying to exert control.
