Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital Management CEO, speaking at the Delivering Alpha conference in New York City on Sept. 28, 2023.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Universal Music Group, home to stars including Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Drake, will move its primary stock exchange listing to the United States from the Netherlands following antisemitic attacks in Amsterdam this week, billionaire Bill Ackman said Friday.
Ackman wrote on X that Universal, with a market value of some $46 billion, “trades at a large discount to its intrinsic value with limited liquidity in significant part due to it not having its primary listing” on the Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange.
The Pershing Square founder and former shareholder activist also said he would seek to relist his publicly traded Pershing Square Holdings from the Euronext exchange in Amsterdam to the London Stock Exchange.
“Events in Amsterdam during the last 24 hours provide an appropriate tipping point for this conclusion,” Ackman wrote.
Officials in Amsterdam banned demonstrations for three days on Friday after overnight attacks on Israeli soccer supporters by what the mayor called “antisemitic hit-and-run squads,” and Israel said it would fly many fans home, Reuters reported.
Mayor Femke Halsema said Israeli soccer fans had been “attacked, abused and pelted with fireworks” around the city. At least five people were treated for injuries, and 64 arrested.
Ackman and Pershing Square have unusual privileges at Universal Music Group that allow him to force the relisting, documents show. UMG was spun out of Vivendi in 2021. Ackman acquired a 10% stake in UMG as part of that spinoff and remains the company’s largest shareholder.
UMG shares have remained largely unchanged since the spinoff, which Ackman partly attributes to the company’s ineligibility from the S&P 500 and other U.S. market indexes.
Pershing Square has a contractual right to force a relisting, UMG’s prospectus shows. The company has 120 days to file a formal registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission from the date of Pershing’s relisting demand, according to the prospectus. Ackman indicated in his social media post that Pershing Square had not yet exercised that right.
A representative for Ackman did not immediately comment.
A spokesperson for Universal Music Group said neither the company nor its board members were involved in the views in Ackman’s post.
“As disclosed in UMG’s listing prospectus, Pershing has the right to request a listing in the US subject to a Pershing entity selling at least $500 million in UMG shares as part of the listing,” the spokesperson said.
Adding, however, “Pershing does not have any right to require UMG to become a US domiciled company or delist from Euronext Amsterdam.”