Bill Ackman

Vocation

American hedge fund manager. He is the founder and CEO of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management LP. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1988, and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1992. In 1992, Ackman founded with a fellow Harvard graduate the investment firm Gotham Partners, which made small investments in public companies. In 1995, Ackman's reputation was enhanced when he partnered with the insurance and real estate firm Leucadia National to bid for Rockefeller Center. Although they did not win the deal, the high profile nature of the bid caused investors to flock to Gotham Partners growing it to $500 million in assets by 1998. In 2004, with $54 million in funding from his personal funds and from his former business partner Leucadia National, Ackman started Pershing Square Capital Management. In 2005, Pershing bought a significant share in the fast food chain, Wendy's International and successfully pressured them to sell its Tim Hortons doughnut chain. Wendy's spun off Tim Horton through an IPO in 2006 and raised $670 million for Wendy's investors. After Ackman sold his shares at a substantial profit. His funds have since bought large stakes in Target Corporation, Borders Group and Barnes & Noble. Ackman has given to charitable causes such as the Center for Jewish History to preserve Jewish genealogy, and the Innocence Project in New York City and Centurion Ministries in Princeton, N.J. (both groups are dedicated to investigating the cases of people who have been wrongfully convicted). Ackman is a signatory of The Giving Pledge committing himself to give away at least 50% of his wealth to charitable causes. He married Karen Ann Herskovitz, a landscape architect, on July 10, 1994. They have three children. Link to Wikipedia biography