Netflix and 5 Other New Stocks: Ekman's Fund Sharply Increased Its Purchases in the Second Quarter

Pershing Square, the investment fund run by American billionaire Bill Eckman, invested in six new companies in the second quarter: payment systems Visa and Mastercard, streaming service Netflix, financial analytics provider S&P Global, exchange operator Intercontinental Exchange, and medical vision products manufacturer Alcon.

Information about the new assets was disclosed in Pershing Square’s quarterly report —the first since the fund went public on April 29. Its portfolio returned a negative return of −12.6% in the first half of the year, while the S&P 500 gained 10.2% over the same period. As of August 11, the year-to-date return stood at −4.3%.

The Ekman Fund typically maintains a concentrated stock portfolio and holds positions for the long term. Opening six new positions at once over the course of a few months is an unusually high level of activity for the fund, notes The Wall Street Journal. Pershing Square itself called the second quarter one of the most productive in terms of new investments in the fund’s history. It attributed this to market volatility, which created extremely attractive investment opportunities, allowing the fund to acquire shares at favorable prices.

Investors were particularly interested in the fund’s position in Netflix, notes Investing.com. As of June 30, the hedge fund held 3.15 million shares of the streaming service, which thus accounted for 4.9% of its portfolio.

By early 2022, Pershing Square had already invested more than $1 billion in Netflix, but just a few months later, it closed out its position, booking a loss of over $400 million after the company reported its first subscriber decline in several decades.

“Since then, Netflix has effectively won the streaming wars,” Pershing Square said in a statement. “We expect the platform’s revenue to grow at double-digit rates, while content expenses will increase at a slower pace than revenue, which will drive further margin expansion. (...) The current valuation based on multiples implies a significant discount for a company with such high growth rates and a dominant market position.”

The investment opportunity arose after Netflix’s stock fell by about 50% from its June 2025 high—amid prolonged uncertainty surrounding Netflix’s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, the report states. As a result, the streaming giant’s valuation has fallen from more than 40 times forward earnings to 21 times.

On April 29, Bill Eckman took two of his companies public on the New York Stock Exchange: the private equity fund Pershing Square USA under the ticker symbol PSUS, and the management company Pershing Square Inc. under the ticker symbol PS. He raised $5 billion through the IPO.

In late June, Ekman released details about the first transactions following the IPO. He wrote that Pershing had invested approximately $4.25 billion—85% of the capital raised during the IPO—in 12 companies. These include tech giants Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta; ride-hailing service Uber; mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; Canadian investment firm Brookfield; and fast-food restaurant operator Restaurant Brands. Four other stocks in the Pershing Square USA portfolio were unknown at that time. Ekman promised to disclose them in the fund’s second-quarter report.

Microsoft remains Pershing Square’s largest holding—1.52 million shares, or 12.4% of the portfolio. Uber Technologies ranks second—7.63 million shares, or 12% of the portfolio. The third-largest position is Meta—913,501 shares, or 8.4% of the portfolio.

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