Most of Pershing Square's portfolio companies use their free cash flow to repurchase their own shares.
Mixed Partly true and partly false in roughly equal measure.
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.
The evidence is the person's or their organisation's own records.
Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.
What would count as true or false
Judge as of 2022. Look at the companies Pershing Square held at the time and their share repurchases in 2022 (or the latest fiscal year). True: more than half of the holdings ('most') were repurchasing their own shares, with buybacks funded largely from free cash flow. Mostly true: most were buying back stock, but one or two used debt or other funding. Mixed: about half were buying back. Mostly false: fewer than half were buying back, or buybacks were small and incidental. False: few or none were buying back.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (3)
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E1 Bill Ackman's 2022 Annual Letter GuruFocus · 6 April 2023 Own record
“About half of our companies (or five of seven if we exclude Fannie and Freddie which are unable to repurchase shares) repurchased their own shares during the year thereby increasing our ownership without any additional investment from PSH.”
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E2 Bill Ackman's 2022 Annual Letter GuruFocus · 6 April 2023 Own record
“As a result of PSH’s and our companies’ share repurchase programs in 2022, our shareholders’ ‘look-through’ ownership of PSH’s underlying portfolio increased by 8.2%, half from PSH buybacks and the balance from share repurchase programs of our portfolio companies.”
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E3 PSCM Annual Investor Presentation Pershing Square Holdings · 11 February 2022 Own record
“Buybacks representing ~8% of current market capitalization planned for 2022”
Reasoning
Pershing Square's 2022 annual letter (E1) says "about half" of its portfolio companies repurchased their own shares during the year: five of seven, or five of nine if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which cannot repurchase shares, are counted. E2 confirms that portfolio-company buybacks made a meaningful contribution to look-through ownership, but neither E1 nor E2 says whether free cash flow funded them. E3 shows only buybacks planned for 2022 (about 8% of current market capitalisation) and gives no actual 2022 repurchases. By the subject's own account [E1], about half of all holdings bought back shares in 2022, or five of seven if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which cannot repurchase shares, are excluded; counting all holdings, and with the funding source not confirmed, this matches the "mixed" level in the criteria.
Cite this claim
Bill Ackman, “Most of Pershing Square's portfolio companies use their free cash flow to repurchase their own shares.” (said 2022). Verdict: mixed. Reliability API, claim c_26fd61d1bca6, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_26fd61d1bca6
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.