Ackman's Pershing Square adds Netflix, Visa and Mastercard, trims Amazon and raises Microsoft

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square disclosed its widest portfolio reshuffle in years in its second-quarter 13F, covering the quarter that ended June 30. The fund opened six new positions: NFLX, V, MA, SPGI, ICE and Alcon. It exited GOOGL entirely and divested a Universal Music Group stake worth about $1.5 billion.

One framing that circulated with this filing needs correcting. Pershing Square did not swap out of AMZN; it trimmed the position by more than 25% while raising MSFT by roughly 10%. Amazon is still a top-four holding at about $2.0 billion, or roughly 10% of the disclosed portfolio, and Microsoft sits just above it near $2.3 billion and about 12%. That is a tilt in emphasis between two cloud franchises, not an exit from one of them.

The new payments and data names share a shape. Visa and Mastercard each entered around $1.1 billion and Netflix near $934 million, and all three fit a preference for dominant businesses bought at a valuation the manager considers fair rather than cheap. Netflix in particular came in trading around 26 times earnings against a five-year average nearer 36, after a year in which the stock fell 32%.

The reshuffle followed a stretch of underperformance rather than a victory lap. Pershing Square USA was down about 3.5% for the year through July and the London-listed Pershing Square Holdings down 9.2%, while the S&P 500 returned roughly 10% over the same stretch. Netflix rose 5% and S&P Global 3% on the day the changes were disclosed. What to watch is whether the payment networks and index providers deliver the steadier compounding the manager has argued for, and whether the trimmed Amazon position gets cut further in the next filing.

Related Stocks

• MA
• NFLX
• AMZN
• MSFT