The business being discussed has net debt of about $100 million and is a profitable, consistent business.
Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.
What would count as true or false
First identify the business being discussed from the context of Ackman's remarks on 2011-06-06. Judge it on its financial statements for the latest period before that date. True if net debt (total debt minus cash) was about $100 million (roughly $75–125 million) and the business was profitable with fairly steady earnings in recent years (no losses or large swings). Mostly true if net debt was somewhat further off (about $50–75 million or $125–150 million) while the business was profitable and consistent, or if net debt matches and there was only a minor one-off blip in profits. Mixed if only one of the two parts holds. Mostly false if net debt was far from $100 million and profitability was only partly consistent. False if net debt was nowhere near $100 million (for example a large net cash position or net debt of billions) and the business was loss-making or had volatile earnings. If the business cannot be identified, the claim is unresolvable.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 market folly Market Folly · 25 May 2011
“Ackman said to buy Family Dollar (FDO).”
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E2 FAMILY DOLLAR STORES INC | 10-Q | FORM 10-Q | Period: 2010-11-27 | Filed: 2011-01-05 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Family Dollar Stores, Inc. 10-Q) · 5 January 2011
“The estimated fair value of the Company’s $250.0 million par value debt was $275.1 million as of November 27, 2010, and $277.8 million as of August 28, 2010.”
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E3 Family Dollar Stores Inc: 10-Q filed 2011-04-06 Canli Capital (third-party display of SEC EDGAR data) · 6 April 2011
“Family Dollar Stores Q2 2011 10-Q (filed 2011-04-06): net income $123.2 million, diluted EPS $0.98, total assets $3.00 billion.”
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E4 Family Dollar Stores Inc: 10-Q filed 2011-04-06 Canli Capital (third-party display of SEC EDGAR data) · 6 April 2011
“Cash - $195.4 million at 2011-02-26”
Reasoning
The evidence gives debt and cash only for different dates [E2, E4], so it does not establish net debt at a single point in time. It gives one quarter's net income [E3] and nothing showing whether earnings were steady in recent years, so the criteria cannot be applied.
Cite this claim
Bill Ackman, “The business being discussed has net debt of about $100 million and is a profitable, consistent business.” (said 6 June 2011). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_1e25e4ea5e78, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_1e25e4ea5e78
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Bill Ackman
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Resolved false
“the average life of an S&P 500 CEO is probably, I don’t know, 4 years or 3 years, 3 and a half years or something like this.”
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Mostly true
“SpaceX is near monopoly in terms of low-cost space launch.”
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Resolved true
“We created it out of the bankruptcy of General Growth.”
Howard Hughes was created out of the bankruptcy of General Growth as a spinoff of its other assets.
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Resolved true
“2 years later, we emerged from Chapter 11.”
General Growth emerged from Chapter 11 two years after Pershing Square's investment.
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Resolved true
“The company’s got a 4 billion dollar market cap, and the goal is to build it into a trillion-dollar thing over time, compounding.”
Howard Hughes Holdings has a market capitalisation of about $4 billion.
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.