The SEC approved a registration statement for Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, a novel investment vehicle from Bill Ackman, per Axios. It’s like a SPAC, except that investors have the right to know the target before they buy in.
Ackman finally is able to pursue “mature unicorns,” more than two years after first floating the idea.
When asked by The Wall Street Journal if he would consider a transaction with X, the billionaire investor said “Absolutely.”
Other companies that could fit the bill include private-equity-owned businesses, divisions of public companies or “mature unicorns” eyeing initial public offerings, according to the vehicle’s regulatory filing.
The prospect of a Musk-Ackman deal is an extreme long shot. It’s highly unlikely that Elon Musk would want to take the company public yet, let alone in partnership with an activist investor.
And Musk himself has said nothing — at least, not on X — about Ackman’s interest.
Ackman originally formed a traditional SPAC called Pershing Square Tontine, which raised a record $4 billion. He then agreed to buy a 10% stake in Universal Music Group from Vivendi at a $40 billion enterprise value, and said he’d form and seed the SPARC with Tontine cash not going toward the transaction.
But then the UMG deal died, with Ackman instead buying a piece of the company via his hedge fund unit.
Tontine was liquidated in mid-2022, but former unitholders will be given rights (at no cost) for the SPARC.
Pershing Square SPARC will seek to invest between $250 million and $3.5 billion into a target company.
