The Ledger ResearchPrivate

The Front Office

Scouting report · HHH

William A. Ackman

  • Executive Chairman of the Board, HHH since 2025-05src

Pershing Square founder; HHH Executive Chairman since May 2025, chair 2010-24

—thin record

Not ranked yet

Scouting sheet

as of 24 Sep 2026
Delivers guidance—no promises on the record yet
Answers the question—no call reviewed yet
Capital allocation—company not reviewed yet
Pay design—no proxy read yet
Skin in the game—no holding or price on file
Age
60src
In the role
1 yr
Promises scored
0
Hit rate
—
Dodges / 100 answers
—
Airtime on calls
—
Every promise, oldest firstno scored promises yet

What to weigh

Red flag 1

  • The Services Agreement pays his firm and is hard to exit. It runs 10 years and renews for 10. HHH can end it only for cause with two-thirds of disinterested directors. Non-renewal needs every disinterested director plus 70% of unaffiliated shares. A change of control triggers a make-whole of the remaining base and variable feessrc

Watch 5

  • HHH booked $17.1m of Pershing Square advisory fees in 2025 ($9.8m base, $7.3m variable on the share price above $66.15), against $123.9m of FY2025 net incomesrc
  • Advisory fees were $3.9m in Q2 2026 and $7.6m in H1 2026src
  • He sits on both sides of Vantage. Pershing Square Holdings bought the $1.0bn Series A preferred, whose dividends track HHH's insurance holding company. After seven years it becomes exchangeable into that company's units, and Pershing Square has a right of first refusal on any sale of its equity (consent needed above 49%). PSCM also manages Vantage's investment portfolios at no fee beyond the Services Agreementsrc
  • Exempt from HHH's hedging and pledging ban for derivatives on HHH stock entered into by Pershing Square and its fundssrc
  • He is the voice of the company now. By speaker label he took 15, 13, 6, 16 and 12 turns on the five calls from Q2 2025 to Q2 2026, against 3 for the CEO on each 2026 callsrc

In their favour 2

  • Skin in the game through Pershing Square: 27.9m shares, 46.6%, beneficially owned (he disclaims beyond his pecuniary interest). A standstill caps the group at 47% ownership and 40% of votes, and a change of control needs a majority of unaffiliated holderssrc
  • Re-elected with 23,115,019 for and 956,959 against at the 2025-09-30 meetingsrc

Career

  1. 2025 – now
    Howard Hughes Holdings Inc.src
    Executive Chairman (PS board designee)
  2. 2024 – now
    Pershing Square Inc. (formerly Pershing Square Holdco, L.P.)src
    Chairman of the board (and CEO per the proxy's ownership footnote)
  3. 2020 – 2022
    Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, Ltd. (SPAC)src
    Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
    The proxy lists the role as former without dates; IPO July 2020 and liquidation July 2022 per the search result
  4. 2010 – 2024
    The Howard Hughes Corporation / Howard Hughes Holdings Inc.src
    Chairman of the Board (November 2010 to May 2024)
  5. 2003 – now
    Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P.src
    Founder and Chief Executive Officer
  6. 1992 – 2003
    Gotham Partners Management Co., LLCsrc
    Co-founder and co-manager (hedge fund adviser)
    The proxy gives the end year (2003) but not the start

Undated in the sources

  • Ackman Brothers & Singer, Inc. (now Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group)src, Principal, arranging real-estate equity and debt financing

Achievements

  • Chaired Howard Hughes from November 2010 to May 2024, then returned in May 2025 as Executive Chairman when Pershing Square bought 9m new shares at $100 ($900m)src
  • Founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management since 2003, after co-founding Gotham Partnerssrc
  • Executive Chairman through HHH's shift from pure real estate to a diversified holding company, with his firm advising on capital allocation. The first acquisition was the Bermuda specialty insurer Vantage (about $2.1bn, closed 2026-06-04), part-funded by a $1.0bn Pershing Square preferredsrc
  • Waives all HHH pay as director and Executive Chairman; his firm is paid instead through the Services Agreementsrc

Education

  • Harvard College, BA magna cum laude (1988)src
  • Harvard Business School, MBA (1992)src

Background

  • Family Item 404 related-party transaction: in June 2026 an HHH subsidiary engaged OXMAN, the design firm run by his spouse Neri Oxman, on a $345,000 fixed-fee work order for a Floreo development unit. The Audit Committee approved it as arm's-lengthsrc
  • Family Son of Lawrence D. Ackman (1939-2022), who led the Ackman-Ziff real estate firm his father and uncle founded. Ackman was a principal there before Gothamsrc
  • Giving Founded The Pershing Square Foundation in 2006 and sits on its boardsrc
  • Boards Chairman and CEO of Pershing Square SPARC Holdings. Former member of the New York Fed's Investment Advisory Committee on Financial Markets. Former director of Universal Music Groupsrc
  • Boards Resigned from the Universal Music Group board effective 2025-05-14, citing the demands of new roles including the HHH executive chairmanshipsrc
  • Legal Pershing Square paid $193.75m (Valeant $96.25m) in late 2017 to settle class actions alleging insider trading around the 2014 Valeant-Allergan bid. The defendants denied the claims had meritsrc
  • Investing His SPAC, Pershing Square Tontine ($4bn IPO, July 2020), found no merger and returned its trust to holders in July 2022src

The promise ledger

No promise on the record yet: the research routine has not scored this company's guidance.

Sources

12
  1. Filing Howard Hughes Holdings DEF 14A, 2026 annual meeting of 2026-09-30 (0001104659-26-098808) · 2026-08-19
  2. Filing Howard Hughes Holdings 8-K Items 1.01/5.02, Pershing Square $900m share purchase; Ackman named Executive Chairman (0001104659-25-044710) · 2025-05-06
  3. Filing Howard Hughes Holdings 10-K FY2025, MD&A and Note 2 Pershing Square advisory fees (0001628280-26-009710) · 2026-02-19
  4. Filing Howard Hughes Holdings 10-Q for the quarter to 2026-06-30, Pershing Square note (0001628280-26-053324) · 2026-08-05
  5. Filing Howard Hughes Holdings 8-K Item 5.07, 2025 annual meeting results (0000929638-25-003820) · 2025-10-07
  6. Filing Form 4, Pershing Square Capital Management (CIK 1336528), J-code transfer of 341,033 shares between its own vehicles, 2026-04-21 (0001140361-26-016490) · 2026-04-23
  7. Web search result WebSearch: Bill Ackman (Wikipedia): Harvard AB 1988, Harvard MBA 1992, co-founded Gotham Partners in 1992 · 2026-09-24
  8. Web search result WebSearch: Fierce Pharma, Valeant and Pershing Square settle Allergan insider-trading cases for $290m · 2026-09-24
  9. Web search result WebSearch: Billboard, Bill Ackman resigns from Universal Music Group board (May 2025) · 2026-09-24
  10. Web search result WebSearch: Fortune, Ackman liquidates Pershing Square Tontine Holdings and returns $4bn (2022-07-12) · 2026-09-24
  11. Web search result WebSearch: Commercial Observer, real estate patriarch Larry Ackman dies at 83 (June 2022) · 2026-09-24
  12. Call transcript HHH Q2 2026 earnings call (2026-08-06), ROIC.ai; turn counts by speaker label taken across all eight files in _transcripts/HHH/