Billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman announced Friday that his Pershing Square property will be closed after sick soccer thugs go on a rampage targeting Israeli fans in a series of anti-Semitic attacks in the Netherlands. He vowed to pull the company from Amsterdam's Euronext stock exchange.
On Thursday night, instigators of Jewish hatred assaulted Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in the Dutch city before and during a match against elite club Ajax, in which more than 60 people were arrested and 10 injured. .
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said the Maccabi pilgrims had been “attacked, abused and had fireworks thrown at them” across the city by what she described as an “anti-Semitic hit-and-run squad”.
Ackman, who is Jewish, wrote to X that he would “seek approval” from Pershing's board of directors for “delisting” from the Euronext exchange.
“The events in Amsterdam over the past 24 hours provide a suitable turning point for this conclusion,” he added. “Leaving jurisdictions that fail to protect tourists and ethnic minorities is both good business and a moral principle.”
The Democratic donor-turned-Donald Trump supporter said his company had long considered moving to the London Stock Exchange, as it does most of its trading there. .
The 58-year-old hedge fund manager also claimed he was already in talks with Universal Music Group (UMG) about switching his company's listing from the Netherlands to the United States.
Ackman's Pershing Square Fund owns about 10% of the music and entertainment giant, making him one of its largest shareholders. He also sits on that board.
“Pershing Square has the contractual right to take UMG public in the US. We intend to exercise this right and effectuate UMG's US listing sometime next year at the latest,” he previously tweeted. said on the social media platform known as.
This global music giant includes Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, U2, Rihanna and more.
The newspaper has contacted Euronext and Universal Music Group for comment.
The billionaire Harvard graduate was one of the most vocal voices calling for now-outgoing President Claudine Gay to resign over anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas protests on campus earlier this year. .
Ackman has also been a vocal critic of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiative (known as DEI), which claims to advance minority rights, calling it a “racist and illegal movement.”
Earlier this year, he scrapped plans to list the Pershing Square USA fund on the New York Stock Exchange after investor demand fell short of expectations.
The idea is to create a so-called closed-end fund, meaning shareholders can only exit if someone else buys their shares.
Mr. Ackman shot to fame in 2012 when he led the nutritional supplement company Herbalife to a disastrous $1 billion funding shortfall, but rival activist Carl Icahn took a contrary stance on the company's future.
The following year, the two had an infamous argument live on CNBC.
