The hedge fund managed by billionaire American investor Bill Ackman has sold its entire investment in Netflix, Ackman revealed in a letter to Pershing Square Capital investors Wednesday.
In January, Ackman told shareholders (also in a letter) that his firm had been investing in Netflix over time and that Pershing Square Capital was among the top 20 shareholders in the company. Ackman said at that time that his firm has purchased 3.1 million Netflix shares so far, which then would have been worth more than $1.1 billion.
The billionaire apparently changed his mind about the mega-streamer after Netflix stock took a nosedive following news released Tuesday that Netflix has lost 200,000 subscribers in Q1 of 2022.
Said Ackman in his letter, posted today on the company website:
Dear Pershing Square Investor:
Today, we sold our investment in Netflix, which we purchased earlier this year. The loss on our investment reduced the Pershing Square Funds’ year-to-date returns by four percentage points. Reflecting this loss, as of today’s close, the Pershing Square Funds are down approximately two percent year-to-date.
While we have a high regard for Netflix’s management and the remarkable company they have built, in light of the enormous operating leverage inherent in the company’s business model, changes in the company’s future subscriber growth can have an outsized impact on our estimate of intrinsic value. In our original analysis, we viewed this operating leverage favorably due to our long-term growth expectations for the company.
Yesterday, in response to continued disappointing customer subscriber growth, Netflix announced that it would modify its subscription-only model to be more aggressive in going after non-paying customers, and to incorporate advertising, an approach that management estimates would take “one to two years” to implement. While we believe these business model changes are sensible, it is extremely difficult to predict their impact on the company’s long-term subscriber growth, future revenues, operating margins, and capital intensity.
We require a high degree of predictability in the businesses in which we invest due to the highly concentrated nature of our portfolio. While Netflix’s business is fundamentally simple to understand, in light of recent events, we have lost confidence in our ability to predict the company’s future prospects with a sufficient degree of certainty. Based on management’s track record, we would not be surprised to see Netflix continue to be a highly successful company and an excellent investment from its current market value. That said, we believe the dispersion of outcomes has widened to a sufficiently large extent that it is challenging for the company to meet our requirements for a core holding.
One of our learnings from past mistakes is to act promptly when we discover new information about an investment that is inconsistent with our original thesis. That is why we did so here.
We are in the midst of an opportunity rich environment for Pershing Square due to the dramatic shift in Federal Reserve policy, the highly inflationary environment, geopolitical uncertainty, and the resulting high degree of security price volatility. We therefore expect to find a good use for the Netflix proceeds.
Please feel free to contact the investor relations team if you have any questions about the above. We are grateful for your support and long-term partnership.
Sincerely,
William A. Ackman
