Bill Ackman Buys Into Netflix, Visa and Mastercard — but Steers Clear of Music
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square has placed six new stock-market bets — Visa, Mastercard, Netflix, S&P Global, Intercontinental Exchange and Alcon — and not one of them is a music company. The investments were disclosed on Wednesday, August 12, in Pershing Square's first quarterly shareholder letter since it listed on the New York Stock Exchange earlier in 2026 (Music Business Worldwide).
The new positions were funded with nearly $5 billion of capital from Pershing Square USA, the vehicle that raised $5 billion in an April IPO. Pershing Square said 2026's stock-market volatility let it deploy that cash at attractive prices. Its new Netflix stake totalled 3.15 million shares (Quartz). The stakes in Alcon, an eye-care company, and Intercontinental Exchange, which operates financial markets infrastructure, were both acquired after June 30. Visa and Mastercard are payments networks; S&P Global sells financial-data services — all companies Pershing Square said it has closely followed for years.
None of the six names sits in the music business. That is notable because Ackman spent five years as a Universal Music Group shareholder, and the exit was recent and messy.
Ackman's fund acquired roughly 10% of UMG from Vivendi in 2021 for around $4 billion, around the time UMG listed on Euronext Amsterdam. In March 2025, Pershing Square began selling down that stake. The same month, Ackman called UMG "one of the best businesses we have ever owned." He resigned from UMG's board in May 2025 as the holding fell below 5% (Music Business Worldwide).
The story did not end there. In April 2026, Pershing Square made a takeover offer for UMG valued at $64 billion. UMG's board rejected it in June, calling the bid one that "fundamentally and materially undervalues" the company. Days after that rejection, Pershing Square sold its entire remaining stake — roughly 80.6 million shares — ending its five-year run as a UMG shareholder. UMG repurchased €250 million ($290 million) of its own stock directly from Pershing Square as part of that disposal. In March 2026, UMG had put plans for a US stock-market listing on hold.
Markets reacted quickly to the new portfolio. After the August 12 disclosure, Netflix shares rose 3.3% and S&P Global shares rose 1.1%, while Pershing Square USA shares were up 1.7% (Reuters). Pershing Square's existing holdings include Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Uber, Brookfield and Restaurant Brands.
Pershing Square Holdings, the London-listed closed-ended fund through which Ackman also manages public money, reported a difficult first half of 2026: net asset value per share declined 12.6% and the share price fell 23%, according to its June 2026 interim report. As of August 11, 2026, the fund's NAV per share stood at $81.26, with a year-to-date return of -4.3%.
What makes the new slate stand out is its distance from music. Ackman built his UMG position at a moment when catalogue valuations were soaring and investors were treating music rights as a distinct asset class. Six new positions later, the capital has gone to payments, streaming video, financial data, market infrastructure and healthcare — sectors that have nothing to do with recorded music, publishing or live entertainment. For an investor who once sat on the board of the world's largest music company, the pivot is a clean break.
