Bill Ackman promises to leave Amsterdam Stock Exchange after attack on Israelis in the city
Billionaire Bill Ackman said he will seek to delist Pershing Square from the Euronext exchange in Amsterdam following violence against Israeli football fans in the Netherlands.
The closed-end fund’s board was already considering this move as the majority of the company’s trading volume now occurs on the London Stock Exchange, Ackman wrote in an X post.
“Events in Amsterdam over the past 24 hours provide an appropriate turning point for this conclusion,” he wrote on Friday.
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Dutch police arrested 62 people after Israeli fans were attacked in Amsterdam on Thursday night and early Friday morning, with the leaders of the Netherlands and Israel condemning the anti-Semitic violence. Amsterdam city authorities said supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv, which played against Dutch team Ajax, were attacked in several areas of the city.
“Concentrating listing on a single exchange, the LSE, and leaving a jurisdiction that fails to protect its tourists and minority populations combines both commercial and moral principles,” Ackman wrote in X. A spokesperson for Euronext Amsterdam declined to comment.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof described the attacks as “completely unacceptable” in an X post on Friday. He wrote that he had assured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call that those responsible would be prosecuted.
Some dual-listing companies want to make their market “smaller” if trading volume is lower than expected, according to Dimitrios Gounopoulos, professor of accounting and finance at the University of Bath who researches IPOs. Typically, the planning process takes time, but Ackman’s personal interests and beliefs may have led him to act more decisively.
“He may have thought ‘Is Amsterdam a good market for me or not?’ but what happened there made him make a direct decision,” Gounopoulos said on Friday. “I think the combination of these two factors is the total truth.”
Universal Holding
Ackman also wrote that he has begun a conversation with Universal Music Group NV about moving its headquarters and listings to the US. The label’s shares rose as much as 4.2% in Amsterdam. Ackman is among Universal Music Group’s largest shareholders and owns a more than 10% stake through his various Pershing Square funds.
“Pershing Square has the contractual right to have UMG listed in the U.S.,” Ackman wrote in X. “We will exercise this right and achieve a U.S. listing for UMG no later than next year.”
Ackman wrote that Universal Music trades “at a deep discount” and with limited liquidity, in part due to its non-listing in the US. The world’s biggest record label listed in Amsterdam in 2021 after being spun off from French media company Vivendi SE. A Universal Music spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Ackman, who has a net worth of about $7.7 billion, according to , is one of the world’s best-known and most influential activist investors, with a career that has included both significant gains and losses. Earlier this year, Ackman wanted to raise $25 billion in an initial public offering for Pershing Square USA Ltd. in New York, but lowered that target to $4 billion and then $2 billion. In July, he withdrew the IPO completely.
Rising tensions
The war in Gaza — which began in October last year when Hamas attacked Israel — has led to increased anger against Israel in many countries. Hamas killed around 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages in that attack.
More than 43,000 people have been killed due to Israel’s offensive in Palestinian territory, according to the health ministry controlled by Hamas in the region. The conflict has also spread to Lebanon, with Israeli troops facing Hezbollah. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are militant groups supported by Iran and considered terrorist organizations by the US and other countries.
