By Ian Salisbury

Hedge fund star Bill Ackman says he's the one to blame for his new closed-fund recent stumbles -- and predicts a quick rebound.

Billionaire Ackman, known for his outspoken political views and two million X followers, made a splash Wednesday launching Pershing Square USA. The $5 billion closed-end fund, which trades under the symbol PSUS, is designed to make Ackman's investing acumen accessible to the masses. Ackman simultaneously listed shares of his management company, Pershing Square Inc., trading under the symbol PS.

Closed-end funds, a relatively obscure type of mutual fund, sell a fixed number of fund shares, then trade on an exchange like a stock. It means the funds, also called CEFs, can trade at prices that deviate dramatically from their underlying values, or NAVs.

That happened almost out of the gate to Pershing Square USA. Shares, which initially priced at $50, were trading at $43 on Friday morning, a discount of 14%.

That's not usual for CEFs. An older, European version of the new Ackman CEF has recently changed hands at a discount of around 30%. The long-term average for U.S. CEFs is around 4%, according to Morningstar. Still, the instant discount is something of a black eye, since it means investors who lined up to buy the fund at launch are already underwater.

In an interview Thursday, the typically pugnacious Ackman issued a mea culpa, saying he believed the selloff was caused by confusion after he routed too many shares into the hands of Main Street investors.

"In retrospect, I made a mistake," he told Barron's. "I favored retail allocations over institutional allocations, which is almost never done."

Retail investors often put in large orders for high demand stock offerings, assuming they will see only a small share of their orders filled. The lion's share typically go to large institutions, who are the investing world's VIPs.

Ackman, however, said he wanted a different approach for his new fund: "I want this to be an entity that favors retail investors, as opposed to giving all the benefits to the institutions."

Unfortunately, taking retail order numbers at face value backfired. Small investors ended up with more shares than they knew what to do with and rushed to sell after trading started.

"I thought I was doing them a solid," he added. "I don't do very many IPOs."

Ackman says he is confident the fund's price will recover.

"I still think we've got to flush through people who may be overcommitted," he said. "But once that technical overhanging is gone, I believe it's going to trade at a premium, or at least at NAV."

Ackman also noted another unusual feature of the deal that should help sweeten the pill for anyone with immediate losses on the closed-end fund. The offering included a special provision that awarded one share of Ackman's management company for every five shares of the CEF that investors bought.

Write to Ian Salisbury at ian.salisbury@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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May 01, 2026 10:57 ET (14:57 GMT)

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