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Ackman Says Amsterdam Violence Tipping Point for Delisting

Bill Ackman, chief executive officer of Pershing Square Capital Management LP, speaks during an interview for an episode of "The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations" in New York, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023. Ackman in October said he covered his short bet on US Treasuries, noting "there is too much risk in the world to remain short bonds at current long-term rates." (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Bill Ackman said he’s going to seek to remove Pershing Square Holdings Ltd.’s listing from Euronext’s exchange in Amsterdam after violence against Israeli football fans in the Netherlands. 

The closed-end fund’s board had already been considering the move because the majority of the trading volume for the firm now occurs on the London Stock Exchange, Ackman wrote in a post on X. 

“Events in Amsterdam during the last 24 hours provide an appropriate tipping point for this conclusion,” he wrote Friday. 

Dutch police arrested 62 people after Israeli football fans were attacked in Amsterdam late Thursday and early Friday, with the leaders of the Netherlands and Israel condemning the antisemitic violence. Amsterdam municipal authorities said supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv, which played Dutch team Ajax, were attacked in several areas of the city. 

“Concentrating the listing on one exchange, the LSE, and leaving a jurisdiction that fails to protect its tourists and minority populations combine both good business and moral principles,” Ackman wrote on X. A spokesperson for Euronext Amsterdam declined to comment.

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof described the attacks as “completely unacceptable” in a post on X on Friday. He wrote that he had assured Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call that the perpetrators would be prosecuted.

Some dual-listed firms want to leave their “smaller” market if the trading volume is lower than they had hoped, according to Dimitrios Gounopoulos, a professor of accounting and finance at the University of Bath, who researches IPOs. Normally the planning process takes time, but Ackman’s personal interests and beliefs might have prompted him to act more decisively.

“He may have been thinking ‘Is Amsterdam a good market for me or not?’, but what’s happened there made him take a direct decision,” Gounopoulos said on Friday. “I think the combination of those two is the total truth.”

Universal Holding

Ackman also wrote that he’s started a conversation with Universal Music Group N.V. about moving its domicile and listing to the US. The record label’s shares rose as much as 4.2% in Amsterdam. Ackman is among Universal Music Group’s biggest shareholders and holds a stake of more than 10% via his various Pershing Square funds.

“Pershing Square has a contractual right to cause UMG to be listed in the US,” Ackman wrote on X. “We will exercize this right and achieve a US listing for UMG no later than some time next year.”

Ackman wrote that Universal Music trades “at a large discount” with limited liquidity in part due to not being listed in the US. The world’s largest record label was listed in Amsterdam in 2021 after it was spun off from French media company Vivendi SE. A spokesperson for Universal Music didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Ackman, who is worth about $7.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is one of the world’s most well-known and influential activist investors, with a career that’s included both outsized wins and losses. Earlier this year, Ackman wanted to raise $25 billion in an initial public offering of Pershing Square USA Ltd. in New York. he cut that target to $4 billion and then to $2 billion. In July, he withdrew the IPO completely. 

Rising Tensions

The war in Gaza — started in October last year when Hamas attacked Israel — has led to rising anger against Israel across many countries. Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage in that assault. 

More than 43,000 people have been killed due to Israel’s offensive on the Palestinian territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there. The conflict has also spread to Lebanon, with Israeli troops taking on Hezbollah. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are militant groups backed by Iran and considered terrorist organizations by the US and other countries.

--With assistance from Bre Bradham.

(Adds Dimitrios Gounopoulos quote in seventh paragraph, Ackman worth in 12th paragraph.)

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