Bill Ackman Just Bought 6 New Stocks

Hey everyone and welcome back to another video for today. In today's video, we're going to have a look at Bill Aman's portfolio. They have been making quite a lot of moves. Well, I say Billman, it's actually Persian Square. Seems same but different, but but still same. Six new positions they added to existing positions as well. We're going to look at why they've been adding to those names, the reasoning behind it, why for them it makes absolute sense to buy at these prices. Those are of course solid companies. Now, funny enough, I own a couple of companies that they have in the portfolio. I own Uber. I own Meta, uh, Google. They've added Netflix back. Remember, Netflix is a position that they had in 2022. Stock dropped 40% or so. They sold quite close to the bottom. And of course, Netflix rallied, but Netflix stock is down close to 50% or so since their highs of last year. And they feel like right now they see a lot of value. So, they're buying that name. And they also bought Visa, they bought Mastercard, they bought a couple of other companies as well. And the team here is quite well, it's it's logical. They're not looking to make a quick buck in a quarter or two. They're looking at companies that are in their view or in many undervalued, cheap, solid compounders that could and would beat the market for many years to come. Now, if you're asking yourself why Netflix is up around 4% today, it's it's because of that. So Netflix right now $77.32 up 4%. Meta is up 1.5% still under $600. Makes absolutely no sense. All in all the market today is still pretty good even in the semiconductor space. Still very good. We did have some good news with regards to Iran. Actually the NeoCloud players they were all green at the start of the day. Right now iron is up 3.2%. They were up 10% because they did the LE horizon one thing. It's the first 50 megawatts to Microsoft. So, congrats to them. Nebus was also up today, but now it's back down again because of a headline that came out with regards to Violent. But then again, the information that got released is a bit outdated because in those releases they say something about August 6 and August 10th. And remember, we had Nebu's earnings report August 12th. So they already told us that they believe that everything is still on track. Now let's focus back on the main point of the video which is this portfolio right here. So the Bill Aquin investment thesis is actually very simple. There are a couple of points here. One simple predictable businesses free cash flow generative strong competitive modes minimal leverage and minimal reliance on capital markets. Number two, value equals the present value of future cash flows. Ain buys for the business, not for the near-term stock moves. You could say, why didn't he hold Netflix back then? I guess you live and you learn. Even for super successful investors like Bilakman. Number three, he targets companies growing EPS 15 to 20% or more a year purchased below Persian Square's estimate of intrinsic value. Number four, no force redemptions means positions can be held for years, sometimes over a decade, letting compounding do the work. And number five, roughly 2% of capital in black swan hedges has generated close to 20% of total returns of the firm's history. And so if we look at the existing holdings, the performance we have Uber, Brookfield Microsoft Meta Restaurant Brands International, Amazon, Howard Hughes, we are going to talk about Howard Hughes holdings in a bit, Fannime and Freddy Mac. As you can clearly see the next 12 months PE for a lot of these names is not that high. If we're looking at the estimated 3 to 5 year EPS keer, it is very very attractive, especially when you start comparing it to the S&P 500. Now, the six new positions are Visa, Mastercard, Netflix, S&P Global, Intercontinental Exchange, and Alcon. I'll be very honest with you, I've never heard of Intercontinental Exchange, and Alcon. And here as well, the trend is simple. You look at the next 12 months PE. Again, next 12 months PE is just analyst expectations. 23 times PE for Visa, 24 times for Mastercard, 21 for Netflix, 19 for S&P Global, 17 for Intercontinental Exchange, and 18 for Alcon. Then if you look at the estimated 3 to 5 year EPS compound annual growth rate 16% for Visa, 18 for Mastercard, 19 for Netflix, 15 S&P Global, 15 and 16 for Intercontinental Exchange and Alcoin. You you are starting to see where this is going, right? They are just looking at extremely good companies, profitable companies, companies that could compound for many years to come, companies that are expected to beat the S&P quite comfortably without having the need to look at, oh, what happens at this quarter, what happens during that quarter. Now, they did talk about the existing positions, a bit of an overview here. So, Uber, of course, due to flat year to date, that's down. They said the following thing. Fear over autonomous vehicles and a rockier way more relationship has weighed on the stock, but earnings are on pace to grow around 35% this year. Valuation looks disconnected from the fundamentals. I agree. That's why I own Uber. As for Microsoft, trading near its lowest multiple in a decade on AI disruption worries for Microsoft 365 and Azure. Aman sees co-pilot adoption and a supply constraint Azure sustaining high teams earnings growth. Of course, they bought Microsoft at I assume a lower price than where we're at right now. As for Brewfield, caught up in a sectorwide fear about private credit and asset manager risk that don't really apply here. Mittens or better distributable EPS growth expected as carried interest realization accelerates. As for Meta, one of my most bullish positions pressured by heavy AI capex viewed as one of AI's clearest beneficiaries, ad growth is at its fastest pace since 2021 with over 20% earnings growth expected from here. Could not agree more. As for restaurant brands, don't really follow that company, but they say Burger King's US same store sales grew 7% and the international business grew 6%, both ahead of peers on track for 8% profit growth, still trading at a discount to peers. As for Amazon, AWS revenue growth accelerated from around 20 to over 30% on AI demand, while retail unit volumes grew 15%, the fastest pace since 2021. Long-term over 20% earnings growth is expected. As for Fanny May and Freddy Mack, shares tripled in 2025 on the hopes of a Trump administration privatization. Then gave back most of these gains this year as no concrete steps followed. Persian Square still believes there is time for privatization to play out and that intrinsic value keeps growing as both companies rebate capital through retained earnings. In the meantime, why did they buy the other six companies? Visa, Mastercards, of course, it goes hand in hand. For Visa, a dominant payment toll taker dated on stable coin and AI agent fears acquies as overblown. As for Mastercard, you can basically say the exact same thing. Netflix, this is a re-entry. the streaming wars was basically effectively won and the stock fell around 50% on engagement and AI worries. They also talk about the fact that content spent barely increased since 2021 while margins have expanded much quicker than that and well that's one part of the thesis. S&P Global ratings indices plat oligopoly franchises sold off on overstated AI disintermediation fears. As for the last two, Intercontinental Exchange and Alcon. For the first one, a 25-year compounder hit by fears of perpetual futures disrupting its exchange mode. Alcon the world's first opthalmology franchise with a free FDA approval call option layered on top. I assume this is a very small position for them. The Visa Mastercard case is basically just look at this right here. The PE is very attractive for this type of business. The expected growth rates for earnings over the next couple of years is also extremely attractive and they said the following thing. Fears are overblown. Stable coins mostly compete outside card networks. Core turf AI agent should expand digital commerce not to bypass the networks and the routing rate cap proposals that spooked market have a stalls. It's a very easy thesis here for Visa Mastercard. As for Netflix, so they said the following thing. The business over 325 million subscribers nearly double Disney Plus and HBO Max combined. Content spent has grown just 2% per year since 2021. While margin expanded from 21% to 31.5%, converting 90% of earnings to free cash flow. The opportunity for them here is one. The shares are down 50% from the 2025 highs rerating when it comes to price to earnings and the fears about engagement and AI generated videos are in their view overblown. They said the following short form video mostly steals time from linear TV rather than Netflix. I would slightly disagree there and long form AI videos remains too compute intensive to threaten its economic soon for now. Looking at S&P Global here as well. Another re-entry previously owned almost 10 years ago in 2017. Now back after an AI fear driven selloff here as well. 19 times forward PE down from 25 times. Lumin's expected earnings growth mid 20% targeted annualized return. Looking at the last two intercontinental exchange and Alcon. So the first one here again 17 times next 12 month PE down from 25 times 18% annualized return since 2015 IPO which is excellent. So institutional traders drive around 95% of intercontinentals exchange volume and have little use for perpetuals which lack intercontinental liquidity fixed financing and centralized clear and risk protections. Why did they say this? because share fell 21% on fears that AI could erode smaller data software segments and that newly approved cryptostyle perpetual futures could disrupt exchange trading. Here the team here is the same like AI fears are overblown. Yes or no? We've seen that with the SAS apocalyp teams who of course right now it gets affected in many many other areas as well. Last one here is Alcon. Again I don't know much about that company. They see the discount because the valuation compressed from the high 20s to around 18 times earnings after a disappointing 2025 raised doubts about Alcom's long-term targets. They're seeing upside in this case why margins currently around 20% have room to expand towards over 25% and a phase three therapy a name with a lot of numbers here offers underappreciated call option upside if it wins FDA approval again every time we talk about these types of companies it's always a call option there is of course huge potential but you need to have a good margin of safety here yes you can call this a call option and I assume this is a very small position for them looking at Triple H. No, not the WWE guy, but Howard use Holdings. So, this is a whole odd other game for them. They view this as the modernday Berkshire Hathaway. Step one is the real estate cash flow. So, Triple H real estate business generates an estimated $2.5 to3 billion of excess cash over the next 3 to 5 years. This then goes into Vantage Insurance. That cash gets redeployed into Vantage. The insurer Triple H acquired in June. Insurers invest premiums to the float before paying claims which then goes to the next step. Persian Square invest Ventur's portfolio for free in the same highquality stocks it already owns plus new leadership from Arc Capital, former CO or Duo, which they mentioned right here. Under that co arch delivered a 298% total shareholder return 23.2% per year versus 144% for the S&P index over around 7 years. Of course, past success does not guarantee future success. Going back to the last step here, a well-run over 20% return equity insurer can be worth 2x book value. Triple H was bought into Vantage at just 1.4 four times book. So value should compound faster than the book itself. Persian Square earns 1.5% of any rise in Triple H market cap above $67.67 reference price inflation adjusted. If Triple H's stock grows 20% per year for 10 years, Triple H related fees could grow to more than 20x today's level. Of course, every time we see this claim of we are creating a modern-day Bert Hatway, well, it's a let's wait and see if that happens. And lastly, we have here Persian Square Ventures or PSV. What is this? This is a newly launched Evergreen permanent capital vehicle giving public market investors access to preIPO high growth companies and usually letting PSV keep holding them after they go public. It's a bit similar to what Robin Hood has been doing. Now, why is it different to many others out there? Typical venture and growth funds must eventually sell to return capital. PSV has no such a deadline and will charge fees substantially lower than most private venture and growth funds. How is it seeded? It's seeded from private investments made on Persing Square's own balance sheet, plus a contribution of select private holdings from Bill Aman's family office. The edge dflow built since 2020 through the firm's spec. Of course, every time we see a spec red flags everywhere plus public market research overlap on teams like AI, sharpening person squares read on private companies in the same sector. This is just an extra, right? If you want to have exposure to some private companies, first of all, just look at what companies they are buying and then make your decision. So, in short, what does he do? He looks at great companies, attractive valuations, companies that are still expected to grow top and bottom lines, companies that have a very good margin profile. In this case, I'm looking at Netflix, but we can look at Visa for example, Visa, Mastercard, again, same but different, but still same. Also, Train PE 31.2 times, Forward One around 25 times. Margin Profile of course excellent. So he's not looking at, of course, the super high growth names, the very attractive, let's say, AI names right now for 100% growth in one year or or things like that. He's looking at yes, the Amazon, the Meta, the Micros. So basically, he's looking at some Max 7 names and then the Visa, Mastercard, Netflix names where the multiple has come down, but the quality of business is still high up there. And it makes sense. A lot of people are saying, "Oh, doesn't make any sense. to just buy the S&P. I I think these companies will definitely outperform the S&P for the many many years to come. Of course, some of these companies, especially in Uber or a Netflix, some people might not agree with this, but I own them, so I'm biased, but I do think it is undervalued. I do think it is misunderstood. We'll see how things evolve, of course. But you're buying them today at these prices. These are of course non AI related names right now, not super high beta names. Those are solid companies, profitable companies generating billions of dollars in free cash flow and they are expected to grow faster than the market for many many years to come. And so this portfolio to me seems like it is positioned in a way where yes AI could definitely help and is helping many of these companies. But if let's say the sentiment around AI or investors start to look at value instead of hyper growth, these are some of the names that could definitely see a little bump on the upside. See their forward multiples expand here as well. As I said from the start, I own Meta, I own Google, I own Amazon, I own Uber, I own Netflix. Maybe Bill is a viewer of the channel. Who know if Bill wants to come on the channel and talk about all of this very welcome as well. So all in all that's about it. In the next couple of days we're going to get a lot more super investors 13F so previous moves not recent move previous moves. So we'll cover as much as possible. Share your thoughts down in the comment section below. Let me know what you think about all of this and we shall see each other in the next one. Bye-bye.