ClaimsBill Ackman

“Day One Investors have multiplied their equity investment by 18 times versus the six times multiple they would have achieved had they invested in a zero-fee S&P 500 index fund”

Bill Ackman, CEO, Pershing Square letter 2022 Bill Ackman's Pershing Square 2021 Annual Letter to Shareholders (GuruFocus) archived copy

Factual Economics and markets

Day One Investors multiplied their equity investment by 18 times versus six times for a zero-fee S&P 500 index fund.

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?

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

True if Pershing Square's official 2022 reporting states that Day One Investors' cumulative net return multiplied their investment by about 18 times since inception, versus about 6 times for the S&P 500 including dividends over the same period. Mostly true if either multiple is off by up to about 10%. Mixed if one multiple matches and the other is off by more. Mostly false if both are materially off but the outperformance is real. False if the outperformance did not exist or the figures are grossly wrong.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (5)

  1. E1 Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. 2022 Annual Report UK Financial Conduct Authority, National Storage Mechanism (filing by Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd.) · 28 March 2023 Own record

    “In other words, Day One Investors have multiplied their equity investment by 16.6 times versus the 5.3 times multiple they would have achieved had they invested in a zero-fee S&P 500 index fund.”

  2. E2 Bill Ackman's 2022 Annual Letter GuruFocus · 6 April 2023

    “In other words, Day One Investors have multiplied their equity investment by 16.6 times versus the 5.3 times multiple they would have achieved had they invested in a zero-fee S&P 500 index fund.”

  3. E3 Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. 2022 Annual Report Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (filed via the UK FCA National Storage Mechanism) · 28 March 2023 Own record

    “Investors have multiplied their equity investment by 16.6 times versus the 5.3 times multiple they would have achieved had”

  4. E4 Annual Report 2021 Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. Own record

    “The statistical data regarding the index has been obtained from Bloomberg and the returns are calculated assuming all dividends are reinvested.”

  5. E5 S&P 500 Return Details Slickcharts

    “| Return Year | Price Return | Dividend Return | Total Return | |---|---|---|---| | 2026 | 12.32 | 1.05 | 13.37 | | 2025 | 16.39 | 1.49 | 17.88 | | 2024 | 23.31 | 1.71 | 25.02 | | 2023 | 24.23 | 2.06 | 26.29 | | 2022 | -19.44 | 1.33 | -18.11 | | 2021 | 26.89 | 1.82 | 28.71 |”

Reasoning

Pershing Square Holdings' 2022 Annual Report says Day One Investors multiplied their equity investment by 16.6 times, versus 5.3 times for a zero-fee S&P 500 index fund (E3, E6). GuruFocus reproduces the same figures in its copy of the 2022 annual letter (E4). Under the criteria, the investor multiple is within about 10% of the claimed 18 times (about 8% lower). The index multiple is about 12% below the claimed 6 times, so it is off by more than 10%. The outperformance is real, but with one multiple matching and the other off by more, the criteria make this mixed; the claimed 18x and 6x may reflect an earlier cut-off date, but no evidence given shows that.

Cite this claim

Bill Ackman, “Day One Investors multiplied their equity investment by 18 times versus six times for a zero-fee S&P 500 index fund.” (said 2022). Verdict: mixed. Reliability API, claim c_f1c70b81389d, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_f1c70b81389d

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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More factual claims by Bill Ackman

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  5. Resolved true Factual 1 October 2026
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    Howard Hughes Holdings has a market capitalisation of about $4 billion.

All of them

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