Pershing Square Acquires $1.1 Billion Position in Visa, Representing About 5.4% of Portfolio
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square disclosed a new position in Visa in its 13F filing for the period ending June 29, holding 3.27 million shares valued at approximately $1.12 billion, which accounts for about 5.4% of the portfolio, making it one of the fund's larger holdings.
In the same quarter, it also opened a new position in Mastercard with about 2.12 million shares valued at approximately $1.09 billion, as well as a position in S&P Global worth about $1.06 billion, totaling over $3 billion in new financial infrastructure positions. Ackman simultaneously announced three other new stocks: Netflix, Intercontinental Exchange, and Alcon, describing this as the largest portfolio restructuring in years, with shares purchased starting in the second quarter and included in various funds, including the Pershing Square USA listed on the NYSE in April.
The fundamentals for Visa provided a buying opportunity that quarter: CEO Ryan McInerney stated in a conference call for Q3 of fiscal year 2026 that net revenue grew 14% year-over-year to $11.6 billion, with earnings per share up 11%, both exceeding expectations; fixed exchange rate payment volume increased by 10%, surpassing $40 trillion for the first time in a single quarter, with U.S. payment volume also up 10%, marking the fastest growth since 2019 outside of the pandemic recovery period; the company repurchased $4.9 billion in stock and paid out $1.3 billion in dividends that quarter. In his semi-annual letter, Ackman noted that he has been tracking Visa and Mastercard for a long time, valuing their global consumer and merchant payment networks, as well as the increasing contribution of value-added services to revenue growth.
Funding sources are tied to the PSUS listing. In April, Pershing Square USA merged with its parent company, Pershing Square Inc., raising $5 billion, with approximately $2.026 billion from the IPO and about $2.974 billion from private placements; Ackman indicated that he has allocated over $200 million of PSUS funds into 14 positions, including 8 existing large holdings and 6 new stocks, utilizing market volatility in the first half of the year to build positions. As of the end of June, the total assets under management of the firm were approximately $32.5 billion, with fee-earning assets around $22.3 billion, of which about 98% is permanent capital.
The portfolio remains highly concentrated. Under the 13F criteria, Visa ranks behind Uber, Brookfield, Microsoft, and Amazon; as of June 30, PSUS holdings show Microsoft at approximately $568 million, accounting for 12.4% of net value, Uber at about $551 million, accounting for 12.0%, Meta at about $515 million, accounting for 11.2%, Visa at approximately $257 million, accounting for 5.6%, and Mastercard at about $254 million, accounting for 5.5%. In the first half of the year, PSH's net value fell by about 12.6%, while the S&P 500 rose by about 10.2%; Ackman explained the new positions as a response to the market overpricing AI infrastructure while neglecting payment and data pipeline stocks.
In terms of market mechanics, the buyers are a concentrated holding fund that just received $5 billion in permanent capital and must convert cash into stocks, while the sellers are the secondary market float; the trades are driven by 13F disclosures, not acquisitions or directed placements. Funds are flowing from cash and money market funds into payment networks and rating data companies, betting on the penetration of electronic payments and value-added services rather than single consumer brands. Beneficiaries include shareholders of high-margin network companies like Visa and Mastercard, as well as PSUS, which needs to quickly reduce cash drag; pressured parties include funds still betting on the pricing power of AI capital expenditure chains and Ackman's portfolio, which is amplified by tight positions leading to increased drawdown elasticity.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Ackman is buying payment networks, not the first time he has replaced "story companies" with "pipeline companies." After starting with his own funds and $54 million from Leucadia in 2004, he has taken aggressive positions in Target, JCPenney, Canadian Pacific, Procter & Gamble, and Air Products; he shorted Herbalife in 2012, and after investing $1.1 billion in Netflix in 2022, he stopped out three months later with a loss of over $430 million. This time, he has rolled out Visa, Mastercard, and S&P Global all at once, a strategy closer to his 2021 acquisition of about 10% of Universal Music Group from Vivendi: not seeking operational control but buying fee rights to stable, established infrastructure.
The core of capital allocation is permanent capital. In 2024, he sold 10% of the management company for a valuation of $1.05 billion and $1.05 billion in cash, and in April 2026, he took PSUS and its parent company public on the NYSE, raising the full $5 billion threshold, which locked in the previous $2.8 billion private placement. New money must be converted into stocks within months, or the discount on the closed fund will continue to widen; thus, he is pouring cash into payment and data stocks that he has tracked for years and which have been undervalued due to AI trading. The motivation is the base for management fees and performance fees: the fee-earning asset base has reached $22.3 billion, with 98% being permanent capital, and the quality of positions directly determines the management company's own listing valuation.
The industry benchmark is Berkshire Hathaway's logic in buying payment and rating pipelines, as well as the 2025 Newsmax-style "turning audiences into shareholders" on the other end—Ackman is pursuing institutional permanent capital, not retail private placements. Visa and Mastercard are in the late stage of network expansion: payment volumes are still growing, but the incremental growth increasingly relies on value-added services and merchant data, with regulatory and cryptocurrency payments posing public risks. The portfolio stage is about control and reallocation, not early expansion or exit.
The structural change is a shift in pricing power. AI capital expenditure has concentrated the S&P 500's gains among a few infrastructure suppliers, while the profit growth of payment networks has been undervalued. Ackman is using newly raised funds to buy mispriced fee rights, essentially shifting market pricing power from "who is building computing power" temporarily to "who is charging for transaction tolls." The mechanism is rigid: permanent capital fears cash drag, and concentrated holding funds can only buy businesses that can explain ten-year compounding; Visa's single-quarter payment volume surpassing $40 trillion, along with significant buybacks, perfectly satisfies both "narrative growth" and "consumable cash."
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
The greatest fear of permanent capital is not volatility, but cash sitting idle.
The pricing power of pipeline companies often returns after the hype has passed.
Concentrated holdings are not about courage, but about position choices forced by fundraising structures.