Bill Ackman's Pershing Square sold its Starbucks, ADP stakes - Business Insider

Billionaire Bill Ackman's Pershing Square has sold its stake in Starbucks in January, a new investor presentation shows. The firm exited stakes in ADP and United Technologies last year. The $8.5 billion fund manager returned 58.1% last year thanks to Chipotle and Hilton investments.Ackman bought into his Starbucks position in October of 2018 and ADP position in May 2017. The firm sold out of Starbucks completely on the last day of January and ADP in June of last year.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.Billionaire Bill Ackman is getting out of another investment that saw him tangle with management.

Pershing Square's latest investor presentation shows the firm selling out of its investment in ADP in June of last year after taking a proxy fight to the data-processing company at the end of 2017. The presentation states the firm sold its stake in the company at $167 a share after buying at less than $100 per share. The $8.5 billion hedge fund manager also sold its stake in Starbucks at the end of January, the presentation states, because “prospective returns became more modest following a total shareholder return of 73% in the 19 months that we owned Starbucks.”The sale of the firm's ADP stake came before another activist investment Ackman left recently.The firm also sold out of United Technologies last year due to a merger with Raytheon that Ackman opposed so much he wrote a letter to the CEO of United Technologies when the deal was reported in the press.

Ackman and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz traded barbs in 2013 about Ackman's investment in JC Penny, but Schultz was no longer the CEO of the coffee chain when Ackman invested. In 2018, Ackman also exited his long-running bet against Herbalife that he made waves for. Pershing's 2019 was stellar, with Chipotle and Hilton fueling annual returns of 58.1%. The investor presentation stated that no position lost money for the year. The presentation was also the first time the firm discussed a new investment to Ackman's portfolio, Agilent Technologies, which sells instruments used by scientists. The presentation states that the company has a regulatory moat that protects its business, and peers in the space trade for much higher despite Agilent being the larger player in the space.

“Management is targeting 50 to 70bps of annual margin expansion over next few years,” the presentation states. “We estimate >800bps margin opportunity based on best-in-class peer.”