Bill Ackman is one of the best-known investment managers in the world. The billionaire is outspoken about various topics on social media, and that includes his hedge fund Pershing Square Capital's equity positions and his plans for the fund. His willingness to share details about his investments with the public makes him a great resource for retail investors.
Ackman's investment style has evolved somewhat over the years, but he remains at heart a value investor, typically taking long-term positions in companies. That has resulted in Pershing Square holding a highly concentrated portfolio of stocks that Ackman firmly believes will produce outsized growth. In fact, more than half of Pershing Square's $16 billion in publicly traded equity holdings sit in just three companies.
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1. Alphabet (20.7%)
Ackman first started acquiring shares of Alphabet (GOOG 2.13%) (GOOGL 2.17%) in early 2023, as ChatGPT was taking off. While many saw the sudden rise of AI chatbots as a threat to Alphabet, Ackman believed that those concerns were overblown. It has taken more than two years, but investors are starting to come around to the reality that Alphabet has a lot more to gain from the growth of AI than it stands to lose.
That was reflected in the company's third-quarter results on multiple fronts. In the search business, the segment that most people saw as being threatened by competition from chatbots, Alphabet's revenue growth accelerated to 15% year over year. Management pointed to the improvements in its AI features built into search driving the results, specifically AI Overviews and AI mode. AI mode seamlessly moves Google users from the standard search results page to its Gemini chatbot interface. The company rolled that feature out globally last quarter, and it now has 75 million daily users and has helped drive total query growth for search.
NASDAQ: GOOGL
Key Data Points
The bigger benefit of AI for Alphabet has been to its Google Cloud Platform. Alphabet's cloud revenue climbed by 34% last quarter to $15.2 billion, and the segment's operating margin expanded to 24%. Google Cloud notably includes Workspace and other enterprise software services, and management said Google Cloud Platform is growing even faster on a stand-alone basis than the 34% reported. That expansion was supported by a surging backlog, which climbed 82% year over year to $155 billion. The company also just added a massive deal to supply Anthropic with access to its custom tensor processing units (TPUs), which should produce another step up in its backlog when it reports fourth-quarter results.
In response to several pieces of positive news recently and the strong earnings results and outlook, investors have pushed Alphabet's stock price significantly higher. Shares now trade for about 27 times forward earnings estimates. Even at that price, though, the stock looks appealing based on the progress it's making at monetizing AI on two fronts.
2. Uber Technologies (18.5%)
Ackman built a massive position in Uber Technologies (UBER 5.94%) at the start of 2025, praising CEO Dara Khosrowshahi for making the ridesharing business profitable over the last few years. Ackman believed Uber's value had been held down by misplaced concerns about how autonomous vehicles would impact its business.
Since Pershing Square took its position in Uber, the company has struck several deals with autonomous vehicle partners to bring their cars onto its platform. One of those partnerships was with Alphabet's Waymo, which is the clear leader in the space. Uber brings a robust demand network to the self-driving car suppliers, which is an extremely valuable asset.
NYSE: UBER
Key Data Points
In the meantime, the company continues to attract new users to its platform, making it even more valuable as autonomous vehicle operators look to expand into new cities. Monthly active platform consumers grew by 15% year over year in the second quarter. What's more, riders are using Uber more often, with total trips increasing and gross booking volume each up 18%.
Uber is seeing strong operating leverage as it continues to grow, with adjusted EBITDA growth of 35% year over year in the second quarter on top of 71% growth in the prior-year period. That has also produced improvements in free cash flow, which management has used to repurchase shares. The board authorized a new $20 billion stock repurchase program in August. As a result, the company should be able to support adjusted earnings-per-share growth around the 30% level that Ackman and his team at Pershing Square expect over the next few years.
With the stock trading at about 26 times forward earnings estimates, it still looks like a good value today.
3. Brookfield (17.7%)
Brookfield (BN 1.35%) (BN 1.25%) is a diversified holding company with three main segments: asset management, insurance, and its operating businesses, which include renewable energy, infrastructure, real estate, and private equity segments.
Two big drivers could produce substantial earnings growth for the business. The first is its insurance business. It tripled its assets from $45 billion to $135 billion in just three years. Management sees the potential to grow that number to $600 billion over time. That will be key as it aims to leverage its investment expertise in Brookfield Asset Management to grow its profits from its insurance float. That's similar to how Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway.
NYSE: BN
Key Data Points
The second factor that could drive meaningful earnings growth over the next few years is carried interest within its asset management business. Brookfield Asset Management, of which Brookfield owns 73%, foregoes recognizing the income from its private funds (carried interest) until it has returned all the invested capital to its shareholders and paid a preferred return on top of that. However, many funds are reaching an inflection point where they're returning significant capital to shareholders, which means its carried interest income is about to explode higher. Management expects about $6 billion of net carried interest income over the next three years and $25 billion over the next decade.
Ackman sees those two factors significantly accelerating Brookfield's distributable earnings per share starting next year, reaching 30% growth by his estimate. At its current share price, the stock trades for less than 20 times trailing-12-month distributable earnings. That looks like a bargain valuation relative to the growth potential ahead of the company. Investors may consider following Ackman into this stock, which he has continued to accumulate over the last four quarters.
