Bill Ackman Files $10B IPO, Sees Iran Chaos As A Feature, Not A Bug

Bill Ackman is betting that the Iran war and the worst market volatility since 2022 are exactly the right conditions to raise $10 billion.

Pershing Square Capital Management filed Tuesday to list on the NYSE under the ticker PS, alongside a new closed-end fund called Pershing Square USA (PSUS), in a combined deal seeking $5 billion to $10 billion at $50 per share.

The firm has already locked in $2.8 billion from family offices, pension funds and insurers.

Volatility Is The Pitch

In a letter to investors, Ackman explicitly called the chaos a feature, not a bug.

He argued that stock market disruption helps his fund buy high-quality companies at bargain prices driven by macro events that may not touch their long-term intrinsic value.

That’s the same instinct behind his famous COVID hedge, which turned roughly $27 million into $2.6 billion.

The portfolio today is concentrated in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE:UBER) and Brookfield Corp. (NYSE:BN).

Pershing Square returned about 34% in 2025, nearly doubling the S&P 500’s 18%.

The Closed-End Fund Problem

The hitch is that markets are not rewarding this structure right now.

Robinhood Markets Inc. (NASDAQ:HOOD) launched its own closed-end vehicle, Robinhood Ventures Fund I (NYSE:RVI), at $25 on March 6.

It fell 11% on day one and was last around $22.64. Ackman’s own London-listed fund has traded at a roughly 25% discount to net asset value for years.

Ackman himself acknowledged the headwind in his 2024 investor letter, writing that the structure requires “a significant leap of faith” from investors given that very few closed-end funds in history have traded at a premium.

His first attempt to raise $25 billion for a similar vehicle collapsed that same year.

Pershing Square Holdings is also down about 11% year-to-date through late February, according to Hedgeweek, trailing the S&P 500.

Almost 1-In-3 Recession Odds

On Polymarket, the “US recession by end of 2026” contract prices around 29% on about $389,000 in volume.

The price of the recession contract has roughly followed the price of oil since the war began.

With bettors pricing in a roughly 1-in-3 chance of a broader economic contraction, Ackman could be raising a $10 billion war chest just in time for the exact macro dislocation he needs to go bargain hunting.

Ackman has modeled Pershing Square on Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK) for two decades, citing Warren Buffett as his unofficial mentor.

Filing a $10 billion IPO into that macro backdrop is either the contrarian call of the cycle or a $25 billion repeat.

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