Bill Ackman channeled his inner Lloyd Blankfein on CNBC Wednesday morning, saying that he's doing "God's work" on Herbalife.

For over two years, Ackman has been publicly crusading against Herbalife, a multilevel marketer that sell weight-loss products, saying that the company's stock is worthless.

The phrase "God's work" was made famous by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in a 2009 interview. The comment, which was meant as a joke, was not taken as such and has since become infamous in finance.

In December 2012, Ackman gave a 342-slide presentation declaring that he was short $1 billion worth of Herbalife shares. Ackman believes that the company operates as a "pyramid scheme" that targets poor people, especially those from the Hispanic population.

His investment thesis is predicated on regulators, specifically the Federal Trade Commission, shutting the company down. (The FTC opened an investigation into the company in March 2014.)

In the months that followed his initial presentation, Herbalife shares skyrocketed as a number of fund managers piled on by going long against Ackman's position. Herbalife's stock traded as high as $83.51 last year but has recently declined, and shares closed at $30.42 on Tuesday.

Ackman told CNBC on Wednesday that he thinks the stock will continue to fall.

"A few more days and we are done," Ackman said after pointing to the stock's decline so far this week. 

Ackman told CNBC that he thinks Herbalife is "going to miss earnings massively," and added that the company is going to have to redo its guidance for next year. Ackman also believes there's a big seller right now. 

Allergan Deal

In 2014, Ackman's Pershing Square fund had an impressive 40% return, while most other funds struggled to beat the Standard and Poor's 500. One of Ackman's big winners last year was Allergan.

For a large part of 2014, Pershing Square and Canadian pharmaceutical company Valeant had been pushing to buy Allergan, the maker of Botox. Allergan had repeatedly rejected Valeant's offers. 

Then, Irish pharmaceutical company Actavis came in as a white knight and agreed to buy Allergan for a much higher price than Valeant was going to pay.

Ackman, who owned about 10% of Allergan shares, made over $2.2 billion on the Actavis/Allergan deal.

"I'm not disappointed," he said on "Squawk Box," adding that he thought the transaction was "great for shareholders." 

Ackman was widely criticized for the trade.

Ackman also told CNBC that he had talked for years about partnering with someone to buy a business. "I think we'll do it again," he said, clarifying that it's a "hypothetical" and he doesn't have a target right now. 

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On Wednesday, Herbalife put out a statement that said Bill Ackman and his team canceled a meeting with the company in December at the last minute. 

In a statement posted on Twitter, Herbalife said: "Ackman is entirely predictable, with Herbalife put options expiring next week, he is off on another tirade of misrepresentations, the sole purpose of which is to drive down our share price. The facts about our business are inconvenient for Mr. Ackman, and he clearly has no interest in learning them, as evidenced by his team's last-minute cancellation of a meeting last month that he requested."

Ackman, the CEO of the $18 billion hedge fund Pershing Square Capital, said in a new statement released Thursday that it wasn't true. 

"Rather than speaking to its deteriorating business fundamentals, Herbalife appears to be attempting to distract investors from the facts by claiming — falsely — that we canceled a meeting," Ackman said. 

According to Pershing Square, the initial meeting between its legal counsel David Klafter and Herbalife was scheduled for Dec. 17. 

Pershing Capital says it "postponed" the meeting — it didn't "cancel" it. 

"I’m sorry about having to postpone our meeting. We’re not passing up the chance to meet you," Klafter wrote in an email to Herbalife. 

Dec. 17 was the day in which Ackman appeared on Bloomberg Television and released an internal video of one of Herbalife's top recruiters that made the company look pretty bad. 

Ackman has been publicly crusading against Herbalife for two years. He first revealed his short in December 2012 by giving a massive 342-slide presentation. He's betting the company's stock goes to $0. 

Ackman's thesis is that the company operates as a "pyramid scheme" that targets poor people, particularly from the Hispanic population. He believes regulators, specifically the Federal Trade Commission, will shut the company down. (The FTC opened an investigation in March 2014). 

After Ackman made his short public, numerous hedge fund managers, most notably Carl Icahn, piled on by going long the stock. In the months following Ackman's initial presentation, share of Herbalife surged, and Ackman amassed millions in paper losses. 

Ackman is now back in the money on his position as the stock has declined in recent months. 

Shares of Herbalife were most recently trading around $31.72. 

Here's the Pershing Square release: 

New York, NY (January 8, 2015) – Responding to Herbalife’s statement issued after the close on Tuesday, January 7, 2015, Bill Ackman stated: “Rather than speaking to its deteriorating business fundamentals, Herbalife appears to be attempting to distract investors from the facts by claiming – falsely – that we cancelled a meeting.”  

To set the record straight, Pershing Square Capital Management is releasing all correspondence between Pamela Jones Harbour, Herbalife’s Chief of Global Member Compliance and Policy, and David Klafter, Senior Counsel at Pershing Square. On November 6^th, Mr. Klafter sent a 19-page letter to Ms. Harbour outlining serious compliance issues at Herbalife and proposing an in-person meeting to discuss these issues.   Ms. Harbour responded by letter inviting Mr. Klafter to Herbalife’s LA headquarters. 

Mr. Klafter and Ms. Harbour had subsequent conversations and email correspondence that resulted in a meeting being scheduled among Ms. Harbour, Mr. Klafter and others at Herbalife’s headquarters on December 17^th. On December 10^th, Mr. Klafter emailed Ms. Harbour to explain that he would have to postpone the meeting because of other pressing year-end priorities (which included the release of a recently obtained Herbalife video). Mr. Klafter wrote: “I’m sorry about having to postpone our meeting. We’re not passing up the chance to meet you.”  Mr. Klafter remains interested in meeting with Ms. Harbour as soon as possible. 

 On December 17^th, the originally scheduled date of the meeting with Ms. Harbour, Pershing Square released a video of a meeting of senior distributors and corporate Herbalife executives including: current Senior Vice Presidents Rob Levy and Bruce Peters, Vice President Mike McKee, and Leslie Stanford, a Chairman’s Club member and former member of Herbalife’s board of directors.  At the meeting, Chairman’s Club member Stephan Gratziani explains the fraud and deception in Herbalife’s business model. We encourage interested parties to watch the eight-minute summary video and the three-hour complete recording. 

 Herbalife’s stock price declined 12% on Monday and 8% yesterday on no news. Herbalife did not comment as to the reasons behind the stock price decline. Today, after Mr. Ackman appeared in a CNBC segment, Herbalife’s stock price rose 4%. In its statement today, Herbalife stated: “[W]ith [Mr. Ackman’s] Herbalife put options expiring next week, he is off on yet another tirade of misrepresentations, the sole purpose of which is drive down our share price.” 

Mr. Ackman stated: “Yesterday, on CNBC, I said that Herbalife will miss earnings for the fourth quarter of 2014 and will lower its earnings guidance for 2015.  If these assertions are incorrect, as Herbalife states, then the company should correct the record by reaffirming both Q4 and 2015 earnings guidance.”

To set the record straight, 97% of the Herbalife put options owned by Pershing Square have been extended and have expiration dates up until 2016.  The January put options held by Pershing Square have a strike price of $65 share. Pershing Square may choose to extend, sell or exercise the January put options depending upon market conditions and other factors.

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Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital, has gained $11.6 billion for his investors since 2004, according to fund-of-funds LCH Investments NV. 

The 48-year-old activist investor is now ranked No. 19 on LCH's "Greatest Money Managers" list. 

The list measures net gains (after fees) of hedge fund manager's since their respective fund's inception. The list includes fund managers like George Soros, Paul Tudor Jones, Louis Bacon and Ray Dalio.

Ackman is now the youngest person on the list. 

According to LCH, Pershing Square generated $4.5 billion in net gains in 2014. A large part of those returns were a result of his profitable stake in Allergan. 

Ackman, who runs Pershing Square Capital Management, had a big year in 2014, netting 40.4% for the year, according to the performance report for the fund.

Overall, 2014 was an incredibly underwhelming year for hedge funds. According to research firm Preqin, hedge funds on average returned just 3.78%, the lowest annual return since their 1.85% loss in 2011. To put that in perspective, the Standard & Poor 500 rose 13% last year.

Ackman has said before that he wants to have "one of the greatest investment track records of all time." He would also like to surpass legendary investor Warren Buffett's record.  

Here's LCH's full list: 

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Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who was a top performer in 2014, is putting on a hedge fund conference on Thursday 

On February 12, Ackman, the CEO of $18 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, and Mark Axelowitz, managing director from UBS Private Wealth Management, will co-host the 2015 Harbor Investment Conference at the AXA Equitable Building in Midtown Manhattan.

The annual event brings together investors to share trade ideas, while raising money for the Boys & Girls' Harbor.

We've heard that Ackman isn't presenting an investment pick, but that he will do a big Q&A at the end of the event.  In addition to Ackman, some of the big-name speakers this year include Larry Robbins (Glenview Capital) and Ray Dalio (Bridgewater Associates). Ackman will be interviewing Dalio, we're told. 

Business Insider will be there covering the event.  

Below is a review how last year's investment picks did. Let's say these nine stock picks make up a portfolio.  If we take the stocks and have them all equally weighted, the performance of this portfolio would be approximately 25.40%, according to our calculations.  For comparison, the S&P is up 15.41% in the same time period.

Ackman, 48, had a monster year in 2014, netting 40.4% for the year, according to the performance report for the fund.

Overall, 2014 was an incredibly underwhelming year for hedge funds. According to research firm Preqin, hedge funds on average returned just 3.78%, the lowest annual return since their 1.85% loss in 2011. 

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Bill Ackman, the CEO of $18 billion hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, is hosting the 2015 Harbor Investment Conference at the AXA Equitable Building in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday.

The annual event brings together both well-known and lesser-known investors to share trade ideas, while raising money for the Boys & Girls' Harbor.

This year, the conference experienced its largest turnout since it began back in 2006.

All of the stock ideas shared at the private conference were embargoed until 4 p.m. EST today. 

Now, here's a quick rundown of the stock picks shared throughout the conference so far (You may have noticed a few of these moving today) : 

Larry Robbins (Glenview Capital Management)

Robbins, the founder of $11 billion long/short equity Glenview Capital, did a Q&A with Ackman where he tossed out a number of stock picks. One way Robbins constructs his portfolios is to take a concentrated approach. He added that they like to "act like owners" for their investments. He also told Ackman that he thinks equities are "exceedingly cheap" compared to other assets. 

1. Thermo Fisher Scientific (long, top holding)  

2. Monsanto (long, top holding) 

3. Flextronics

4. McDonald's (He hasn't publicly talked about this before.) 

5. Valeant (It's a "small position") 

Todd Sullivan (Rand Strategic Partners)

1. Howard Hughes Corporation (price target of $247 to $257)

Steve Errico (Locust Wood Capital Advisers)

Errico, who manages a $900 million fund, had the best pick at the 2014 Harbor Conference. Last year, he pitched NorthStar Realty, which rose more than 51% since then. His first pitch this year is a spinoff of that company. 

1. NorthStar Asset Management 

2. Liberty Media Corporation (He sees a 33% upside) 

3. Tesoro Logistics (It's an MLP. He says the way to buy it is through QEP Midstream Partners. TLLP owns a 55.8% LP interest in QEPM.)  

Here's how last year's stock picks from the Harbor Conference did: 

Ackman will be doing a Q&A later this afternoon with hedge fund god Ray Dalio, the founder of $160 billion Bridgewater Associates. Ackman will also be answering questions. Stay tuned.

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Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, the CEO of $19 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, is killing it again this year.

Reuters' Svea Herbst-Bayliss reports that the 48-year-old activist investor posted gains of 5.8% in February. Pershing Square is up 6.5% this year, the report said.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is up just over 2% this year.

Ackman had a monster year in 2014, netting 40.4% for the year thanks to his hugely profitable stake in Allergan.

For the most part, 2014 was a challenging year for hedge funds. According to the research firm Preqin, hedge funds on average returned just 3.78%, the lowest annual return since their 1.85% loss in 2011. For comparison, the S&P 500 rose 13% last year.

Ackman has said before that he wants to have "one of the greatest investment track records of all time." He has also said he would like to surpass legendary investor Warren Buffett's record. He is ranked No. 19 on fund-of-funds LCH Investments' "Greatest Money Managers" list.

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Activist investor Bill Ackman, the CEO of $20 billion Pershing Square Capital, now owns a $3.3 billion stake in Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Reuters' Svea Herbst-Bayliss reports citing an unnamed source. 

According to Reuters, Ackman owns an approximately 5% passive stake in the Canadian drug company. He started building the position this year. 

Last year, Ackman teamed up with Valeant to pursue a hostile takeover of Allergan, the maker of Botox. All of Ackman and Valeant's offers were rejected.

At the time, Ackman didn't own any shares of Valeant. According to Reuters, he couldn't own Valeant shares while they were working on the takeover together. 

Ackman made more than $2.28 billion on his position in Allergan after the company was acquired by Actavis in a $66 billion deal.

Shares of Valeant were last trading up about 2.07% at $202.91 per share. 

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Bill Ackman is one of the top investors in the world, and he's said that he's aiming to have "one of the greatest investment track records of all time."

As the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund he founded, he oversees $19 billion in assets.

But before he became one of the elite, he learned the basics of investing in his early 20s.

He gave a Big Think presentation in late 2012 aimed at young professionals just starting out, as well as those who are more experienced but lack a financial background.

We've pulled some of the highlights from Ackman's 40-minute, computer-animated lecture "Everything You Need to Know About Finance and Investing in Under an Hour."

Ackman takes viewers through the founding of a lemonade stand to teach the basics, explaining how investors pay for equity, a word interchangeable with "stock." In the example, the owner starts with $750, with $250 of that coming from a loan.

Here's an income statement tracking the healthy growth of the lemonade business. By year five, the company has seven stands, supported by an increased margin on products, and makes a profit of $2,311 (earnings before tax).

A business owner can take money from a lender, who profits from interest on his loan, or an equity investor, who buys shares in the company. An equity investor stands to make much more money than a lender due to the level of risk involved — if the company doesn't make money, neither does the investor. 

For instance, an investor makes a small amount of interest from government bonds because the risk is low — the US government is more secure than any corporation. An investor makes a large amount of interest from loans to business owners because the risk is high.

Equity is a "residual claim" because debt must be paid off before investors can profit. Shareholders may make money from company profits called "dividends."

When a company has grown significantly, its owner can sell it for a typically large sum of money, in exchange for control of the business and a shot at future profits.

Instead of growing a business further, an owner can pay himself dividends to put cash in his pocket rather than in the company.

At a moment of strong growth, the business owner can either share profits with a private investor or go public.

When a business files for an initial public offering (IPO), its owners offer a portion of it to the general public, which raises cash, and the company gets listed on an exchange. It requires being transparent and, in the US, reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ackman's nine tips for successful investing are about minimizing risk.

Similarly, he recommends that you only begin investing when you pay off debt and set aside an emergency fund.

And when you do become an investor, Ackman says success requires developing a resistance to the human tendency of following the herd's reactions to short-term market fluctuations.

If you don't have the time or desire to invest in individual stocks, you can invest in mutual funds, large pools of funds managed by a professional investor.

You can also outsource your investing to a money manager.

Ackman says his presentation is just a brief introduction to the world of finance. For a next step, he recommends Benjamin Graham's classic "The Intelligent Investor"), which Ackman says changed his life dramatically after he read it in his early 20s.

Check out the full video below:

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Global Strategy Group, the consultancy firm hired by hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, said they are not the target of any investigation into potential manipulation of Herbalife's stock. 

"It is our clear understanding that we are not a target of any investigation, and we are confident that all our work surpasses the highest legal and ethical standards. We spoke with the government and provided full transparency into all of our efforts. GSG has never made false statements about Herbalife, nor do we believe anyone else has either," the firm said in a statement emailed to Business Insider.

"We spoke to the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York -- not the FBI."

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the Manhattan US attorney's office and the FBI have done interviews with contractors hired by Ackman as to whether or not they made potentially false statements about Herbalife to regulators.

Ackman told CNBC on Friday morning  that neither he nor his fund has been contacted by the FBI.

He said that he was aware that Global Strategy Group had been contacted. Global Strategy doesn't lobby, but contracts out to state and federal lobbyists, according to a source.

Ackman, who runs $19 billion Pershing Square Capital, is infamously and very publicly short Herbalife–a multi-level marketer that sells nutritional shakes and supplements. It's Ackman's belief that the company operates as an illegal "pyramid scheme" that targets lower-income people. He's betting the stock goes to $0. 

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge dismissed a lawsuit by Herbalife shareholders who claimed that the business structure and marketing practices of the weight loss and nutritional supplements company violated the law and that they lost money because it amounts to a pyramid scheme.

Plaintiffs did not show that accusations by activist investor Bill Ackman proved fraud by Herbalife, U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer in Los Angeles wrote in his ruling Tuesday.

Ackman, who runs Pershing Square Capital Management, bet heavily against the company's stock, describing Herbalife as a pyramid scheme.

Because no fraud was proven, the judge said, the shareholders can't show that losses they suffered were caused by the company's perceived misrepresentations.

Herbalife said it welcomed the judge's decision.

"We are confident in the strong fundamentals of our business model," Julian Cacchioli, a company spokesman, said in a statement.

Shareholder Abdul Awad sued and later was joined by the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System and the City of Atlanta Firefighters' Pension Fund. A lawyer for the pension funds, Maya Saxena, said Wednesday that her clients were considering whether to amend the complaint.

Fischer gave the investors until April 8 to make revisions.

The case relied heavily on accusations made by Ackman in a three-hour presentation in New York last year. He focused on Herbalife's "nutrition clubs," private settings where Herbalife distributors sell the company's products — such as weight-loss shakes — and recruit new members.

Ackman said that because the clubs run by Herbalife's distributors focus on recruiting instead of selling products, the clubs are by definition a pyramid scheme.

He repeatedly tried to persuade other investors to bet against Herbalife, most memorably in a shouting match with billionaire investor Carl Icahn on live television in January 2013. Icahn has defended Herbalife.

Herbalife has vigorously denied Ackman's arguments and says it operates like a multi-level marketing company similar to Avon, Amway and Mary Kay.

Nutrition clubs have become an increasingly lucrative business model for Herbalife in the last 10 years, with more than 4,000 operating in the U.S. alone, according to the company.

Ackman alleged that those attending nutrition clubs were not actually consumers of the products. Instead, they were often recruits to become nutrition club operators of their own. These recruits should not be thought of as customers, but rather the next layer in the pyramid, he said.

Pyramid schemes are illegal because they eventually collapse once there are no more people to recruit.

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Shares of Herbalife are up more than 43% since the beginning of March.

And it looks like hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, the CEO of $19 billion Pershing Square, is back in the red on his infamous $1 billion Herbalife short.

Shares of multi-level marketer Herbalife ripped higher on Monday. The stock rose $2.89, or 6.86%, to end at $44.99. 

In an interview with Bloomberg TV on March 13, Ackman said that Pershing Square "shorted the stock around $47 or $48." He also said that if you add the various expenses, the breakeven price was "something in the mid-30's."

The stock's trading well above that threshold right now. 

Just last week, Herbalife, which sells weight loss shakes and nutritional supplements, won the dismissal of a shareholder lawsuit in California that alleged they lost money because the company misrepresented itself when it's actually an illegal pyramid scheme.

Pershing Square later commented in a statement that the court's decision "did not address in any way whether Herbalife is an illegal pyramid scheme, nor did the Court exonerate or bless Herbalife's business practices."

For more than two years, Ackman been very publicly crusading against Herbalife. It's Ackman's contention that the company operates as a "pyramid scheme" that targets poor people, especially in the Latino community. Ackman, who has said he will take this "to the end of the earth," is betting that Herbalife's stock goes to $0.

Herbalife has repeatedly denied Ackman's allegations. 

Here's a chart of the stock since the beginning of March: 

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Hedge funds might have an image problem. At least, that's what some managers seem to think.

Pershing Square, Och-Ziff, Baupost Group, and others have dropped the term "hedge fund" from their public filings and investor notes – or buried it deeply in annual reports, The Wall Street Journal's Rob Copeland noted.

AQR Capital Management, for example, defines its services as "a spectrum of alternative investments." Co-founder David Kabiller said that "labels can create a lot of emotions" and told the Journal his own mom doesn't even like the term.

Other firms are being more upfront about their semantic switch.

“We actually don’t see ourselves as a hedge fund," wrote Baupost founder Seth Klarman in a note to investors. He now refers to the business as a "series of investment partnerships."

The other reason funds might be making the change is to market themselves like more traditional funds – or to avoid being compared with other hedge funds.

It's easy for managers to play with the wording because hedge funds don't fall under one agreed-upon regulatory definition.

For the record, though, here's the SEC's definition:

Like mutual funds, hedge funds pool investors’ money and invest the money in an effort to make a positive return. Hedge funds typically have more flexible investment strategies than mutual funds. Many hedge funds seek to profit in all kinds of markets by using leverage (in other words, borrowing to increase investment exposure as well as risk), short-selling and other speculative investment practices that are not often used by mutual funds.

And yet, according to the Journal, only 1,176 of 8,000 hedge funds actually refer to themselves as such on their websites.

Read the full story in the WSJ>>

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Bill Ackman said Herbalife is a better short today than ever before, Bloomberg News reports.

Ackman, who runs Pershing Square Capital, made those comments at 13D Monitor's Annual Active-Passive Investor Summit on Monday afternoon.

For nearly two-and-a-half years, Ackman has been publicly campaigned against Herbalife–a multi-level marketer that sells weight loss shakes. Ackman believes the company operates as a "pyramid scheme" that targets poor people, especially those from the Latino community. Ackman, who's betting that the stock goes to zero, believes that regulators, specifically the Federal Trade Commission, will shut the company down. (The FTC opened an investigation in Herbalife in March 2014).

Ackman is currently losing money on his infamous Herbalife short. 

In a recent interview with Bloomberg TV, Ackman said that Pershing Square "shorted the stock around $47 or $48." He also said that if you add the various expenses, the breakeven price was "something in the mid-30's."

The stock closed down 0.99 cents, or 2.26%, to end the day at $42.84 per share. The stock was last up 0.27 cents, or 0.62%, in the after hours session. 

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Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman dropped $91.5 million on a luxury One57 apartment last month, together with a group of investors.

It's the second-most expensive apartment sale in New York City – ever – but Ackman says he bought it "at a very attractive price."

Before speaking at the 2015 Sohn Investment Conference on Monday, he told Bloomberg's Stephanie Ruhle that the apartment is an "investment."

"I think it’s the best apartment in the world," said Ackman, who does not intend to ever live there.

The six-bedroom, 13,554-square foot unit is located on the 75th and 76th floors of the swanky One57 condo, reports The Real Deal.

Ackman told Ruhle he thinks he got the place cheap because apartments overlooking New York's Central Park usually go for $10,000 per square foot. At $91.5 million, he only paid $6,750 per square foot.

Initially, Ackman said he bought the apartment "for fun."  Now it sounds like he's changing his tone. He said he lives in a normal "family" apartment.

Want to know what Ackman's place looks like? Step inside One57, where New York's most expensive penthouse just sold for a record-breaking $100 Million

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Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is known, among other things, for his $1 billion bet against the weight-loss and nutritional-supplement marketer Herbalife.

But it sounds as if we will not be seeing more monumental shorts from Ackman anytime soon.

"It's not worth the brain damage," he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV's Stephanie Ruhle on Monday. "I would have to think very, very hard before another public short."

Short sellers bet against a company's performance and profit when the company's stock falls. Doing so can give them a bad reputation.

"People are immediately skeptical of your motives, and so on and so forth," Ackman said, "because you have an opportunity for profit if the business fails."

Ackman has run a public crusade against Herbalife for more than two years, betting that the company's stock will ultimately go to $0. He thinks the company's poor fundamentals will bring it down "before the regulators do" and said he would see the bet through.

A federal investigation has begun about whether Herbalife's stock has been manipulated, and the Justice Department and FBI are reportedly digging around.

Ackman told Ruhle that while short selling is inherently good for markets and for outing fraud, it is not a productive use of time.

"You do all the work," he said. "You suffer all the spotlight and the criticism and some amount of reputational damage from inaccurate articles in the press.

"Is it worth that investment in exchange to make a profit? There are easier ways to make money."

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Legendary activist investor Bill Ackman is trying to change his image from the "corporate raider everyone loves to hate" to something much friendlier, according to this month's Forbes cover story.

And that something might look like Warren Buffett.

Forbes' Antoine Gara reports that Ackman is remodeling himself after the Oracle of Omaha, who, after acquiring the textile company Berkshire Hathaway, "began swallowing businesses and stashing them under it."

Gara says Ackman's own personal Berkshire Hathaway is his Nevada real estate firm, Howard Hughes, of which he is the chair and owns 26%. The theory is that Ackman will use Howard Hughes as a holding company with which to build his empire.

Activist investors like Ackman have seen a bit of pushback recently: everyone from Senator Elizabeth Warren to BlackRock's Larry Fink have pointed fingers at shareholder activists who pressure companies into potentially unhealthy corporate actions like boosting stock buybacks and raising dividend payouts.

Ackman defended activist investing in an interview with Bloomberg TV's Stephanie Ruhle on Monday, saying "the kinds of changes that we propose, the kind of changes that an excellent activist proposes, are not short-term changes to derive short-term value. They're changes to fundamentally improve a business over many, many years."

He said activism is "critically important" – but, according to Forbes, Ackman's first success was in real estate, and it sounds like he's now looking to return to his roots.

Howard Hughes is currently planning a 35-square mile residential community in Summerlin, Nevada, according to the story. They own nearly 6,000 acres in the surround area and have plans to build 4,000 residential units and 1.4 million square feet of office space there.

And that's just the beginning. The corporation also owns a minor league baseball team in Las Vegas and air rights above a mall on The Strip near the Wynn hotel, Gara reported. He hinted that Ackman and Howard Hughes CEO David Weinreb may be planning a casino next.

Too bad Warren Buffett finds gambling "socially revolting." Maybe they're not that similar after all.

Read the Forbes story here »

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Hedge-fund titan Bill Ackman is buying a historic 464,000-square-foot car dealership building located on Manhattan's far West Side for Pershing Square Capital's new headquarters, the New York Post reports.

The deal, which hasn't been finalized, is being led by The Georgetown Company, a commercial real-estate firm that developed the IAC Building. Ackman is a partner in the deal, Business Insider has learned. 

The building is far away from where most hedge funds are headquartered in the heart of Midtown Manhattan.

The former Ford Motor Company building, located at 787 11th Ave. between 54th and 55th streets, was was expected to sell for more than $230 million. It's unclear how much is being paid.

Ackman's $20 billion Pershing Square Capital Management currently occupies the 42nd floor of 888 Seventh Ave., which offers stunning views of Central Park. The lease will be expiring soon.

We expect that Ackman probably has big plans for Pershing's new digs.

The old Manhattan Ford Lincoln Mercury dealership is an eight-story building with ground retail space and rooftop access.

It's just across the West Side Highway from Piers 92/94. It's also located directly across the street from De Witt Clinton Park, which features basketball and handball courts as well as baseball and soccer fields.

The only drawback is that there are no major subway lines nearby, so Pershing employees may want to make a habit of riding bikes along the West Side Highway Bike Path. 

Pershing employees are a pretty active crowd as it is. (There's a gym in Pershing's current office and Ackman has held the record on the treadmill and the rowing machine.) 

Then again, there could also be a shuttle.

The building itself was finished in 1929. It was originally the Packard Motor Car Company Service Building, according to a report in the New York Times. It was renovated by Ford in 1997. By the way, we noticed that the building is adorned with some gargoyles (see photos here).

Pershing Square employs about 70 people, and they currently occupy about 31,000 square feet in New York, so it's likely that other tenants would rent space in the massive West Side building. 

Ackman has an estimated networth of $2.5 billion. In 2014, he was the best-performing big hedge-fund manager, netting his investors 40% in a year when most funds struggled. He's been making headlines lately for his real-estate investments. Ackman famously dropped $91.5 million on a luxury apartment at One57— the second-most expensive NYC apartment sale ever — with a group of investors.

Here's a map of where the new office will be located: 

Here's a Google Street View version: 

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Hedge fund titan Bill Ackman, the CEO of the $20 billion fund Pershing Square Capital, says his firm has two new investments that it has yet to disclose.

During a conference call with Pershing Square Holdings investors on Monday morning, the hedge fund billionaire said he would have a "little more update" on the investments at the end of May. One investment is small and the other is large, he added.

Ackman said the large one was "approaching 15% of capital." (That would be about $3 billion, according to our calculations.)

Ackman added that it could be "a couple of months before we are required to make a disclosure." (Hedge funds are required to file a disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission if they own 5% or more of a company's stock.)

During the Q&A portion of the call, Ackman declined to say whether the investment was active or passive.

Ackman is known for typically being a long-only activist investor, taking large positions in a handful of companies and advocating changes from management to unlock more value. His best-known position today may be his short bet against Herbalife — a multilevel marketing company that sells weight-loss shakes that he believes operates as a "pyramid scheme" and will go to $0.

During the first quarter of 2015, Pershing Square was up 3.4% to 3.5%, he said. Year-to-date, the fund is up 6% to 6.3%. The 49-year-old activist investor had a big year in 2014, netting 40% while the average hedge fund returned just 3.78% and the S&P 500 rose 13%.

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It looks as if we now know what the smaller of Bill Ackman's two new investments is.

Forbes reports that Pershing Square Capital, Ackman's $20 billion hedge fund, disclosed a stake in Nomad Holdings, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that trades on the London Stock Exchange (ticker: NOMHF).

Ackman snapped up a 21.7% stake in Nomad that's worth about $350 million, the report said.

Nomad was cofounded in early 2014 by billionaire fund manager Noam Gottesman and Ackman's friend Martin Franklin, the chairman of Jarden. (Pershing Square talked about Jarden Corp. at the Sohn Conference back in May.)

Shares of Nomad are up 55% since the company went public in September.

In late April, the company said it was acquiring Iglo Foods, the largest frozen-food business in Europe. Ackman said at the Sohn Conference last month that Nomad intended to use its Iglo acquisition "as a base for future food-industry acquisitions."

This isn't the first time Ackman has dabbled in SPACs. It has proved to be a hugely successful investment strategy in the past for Ackman. In February 2011, he disclosed a 30% stake in the cash-shell company Justice Holdings (it traded under the ticker symbol JUSH on the London Stock Exchange).

That investment vehicle was also cofounded by Ackman's buddy Franklin.

Ackman later used Justice Holdings to buy Burger King and returned the burger chain as a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Last year, Burger King acquired the Canadian coffee and donut chain Tim Hortons. It now trades as Restaurant Brands International.

Last month, during a conference call with Pershing Square Holdings investors, Ackman said his fund had two new investments, one small and one large.

It appears Nomad is definitely the smaller of the two investments.

Ackman said the large one was "approaching 15% of capital." (That would be about $3 billion, according to our calculations.) He also said during that call that it could be "a couple of months before we are required to make a disclosure." (Hedge funds are required to file a disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission if they own 5% or more of a company's stock.)

Now here's a chart of Nomad:

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Activist investor Bill Ackman, CEO of the $18 billion hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, says the most interesting investments in his portfolio right now are the mortgage originators Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The 49-year-old activist investor was on a panel on Wednesday with fellow activist investor Nelson Peltz, a friend of Ackman's and CEO of Trian Fund Management, at the CNBC/Institutional Investor Delivering Alpha Conference at the Pierre Hotel in New York.

"Mad Money" host Jim Cramer asked the pair for their single best idea.

Ackman said his was Fannie and Freddie but "no one has really noticed." By the way, he presented on Fannie and Freddie at the Sohn Conference in 2014. At that time, Ackman said he saw the stock price ranging from $23 to $47 in the future.

According to Ackman, this investment offered "the most upside and, well, probably has the most downside of anything we own.

"The downside outcome is very unlikely," he added.

Fannie and Freddie needed massive bailouts amid the financial crisis and were taken over by the government. As a shareholder, Ackman thinks the government will eventually move toward a less regulated Fannie and Freddie.

He did acknowledge, though, that there was a "lot of risk" in the trade.

Peltz said he had two new positions that account for one-third of Trian's portfolio, but he was not ready to announce them. He gave some hints, though. One is industrial, and the other hasn't been categorized yet.

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