Bill Ackman at the CNBC Delivering Alpha Conference: We own businesses with pricing power
Bryan Bedder

Bill Ackman, hedge fund manager and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, said that the key to success in a high-interest rate environment is owning businesses that have pricing power. 
Itâs hard to manage a business where inflation is volatile at 8%, âbut many, many businesses can do very well in a world of 3% inflation,â he told CNBCâs Scott Wapner at the CNBC Delivering Alpha Investor Summit on Thursday. 
He said that the types of companies he owns are âvery much like royalties.â
The biggest share of Bill Ackmanâs portfolio â 18.86% â is Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (CMG), valued at $2.04B. Pershing Square Capital owns 953,610 shares. 
They also own 23.35M shares of Restaurant Brands Intl Inc. (QSR), valued at $1.81B, which is 16.73% of their portfolio; 7.47M shares of Lowes Cos Inc. (LOW), valued at $1.69B, 15.58% of their portfolio; 9.33M shares of Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (HLT), valued at $1.36B, 12.56% of their portfolio; 16.59M shares of Howard Hughes Corp. (HHC), valued at $1.24B, 11.54% of their portfolio; 16.10M shares of Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd (CP), valued at $1.22B, 11.27% of their portfolio; 9.38M shares of Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOG), valued at $1.13B, 10.49% of their portfolio; and 2.19M shares of Alphabet Inc. Class A stocks (NASDAQ:GOOGL), valued at $261.55M, 2.42% of their portfolio.
Pershing Square Holdings also owns 10% of Universal Music Group, which is valued at a total of $46.64B as of September.
âThe beauty of these kinds of businesses is actually [that] inflation is ultimately their friend, as long as they can keep their costs,â said Ackman, âas long as their costs donât inflate as quickly as their revenues.â
Ackman also has Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac investments that represent a little over 1% of his portfolio, âand then we opportunistically hedge risks,â he said. âThe two risks weâve been concerned about over the last year and a half are energy prices and kind of the longer part of the [Treasury] curve â the rates moving up.â
According to Business Insider, Ackman purchased around 8.1M shares of Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOG) shares, and 2.2M of its Class A (GOOGL) shares in the first quarter of 2023, securing a stake worth nearly $1.1B by the end of March.
âAI was the reason the stock was cheap,â he said. 
As ChatGPT was launched, âGoogle was way behind in AI, and the stock sold off to 15 times earnings for one of the greatest businesses in the world,â he said. âThen, we actually bought more in the 120s. Itâs our second-largest investment.â

He expects Google to be a dominant player in AI âfor the very, very long term.â


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