Bill Ackman’s Hedge Fund May Have a Record $40B Spac Deal with Universal Musical

Pershing Square, the hedge fund founded and run by Bill Ackman is nearing a record $40 billion SPAC deal with Universal Music according to a source.

Ackman’s blank-cheque company would acquire a 10 per cent stake in the record label.

Dealogic data finds that if this deal were to happen it would be the biggest SPAC deal on record and it would push Southeast Asia’s Grab’s SPAC merger with Altimeter Growth Corp. out of first place.

The source told CNBC’s Leslie Picker this week that Pershing Square is closing in on the deal to take Universal Music Group public.

Pershing Square Tontine Holding (PSTH) shares dropped over 8% in extended trading after closing Thursday at $25.05.

The SPAC IPO was offered at $20 a share and it started trading in September 2020.

French media company Vivendi is the majority owner of Universal Music while Chinese tech company Tencent is a minority stakeholder.

According to a Financial Times report, Vivendi has plans to distribute other remaining Universal shares to investors through a public listing on the Euronext exchange later this year, said two people briefed on the situation.

The Spac listing is viewed as a proxy to value Universal Music ahead of this initial public offering, said one of the people.

“We’ve been working on a transaction since early November,” Mr. Ackman said at a Wall Street Journal conference in May. “We’re either going to get a transaction done in the next relative short term — weeks — or we’ll be onto the next one.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.