Business

Ackman up despite Herb-short

It hasn’t exactly been the best of weeks for hedge fund activist Bill Ackman (left).

JCPenney, in which Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital owns a 17.7 percent stake, fell 13.4 percent this week after The Post reported an apparel industry factor, CIT, stopped approving shipments for some smaller vendors amid uneasiness with the retailer’s financial statements.

CIT started approving shipment shortly thereafter — but Citigroup then downgraded the retailer’s stock to “sell.”

A second controversial Ackman investment, his $1 billion short bet on Herbalife, also stumbled as shares of the Los Angeles company jumped 9.6 percent this week on a report that George Soros had taken a stake in it.

Ackman did take a step that would alleviate some of the pain caused by those two investments — Pershing Square took a 9.8 percent stake in Allentown, Pa.-based Air Products & Chemicals.

Shares in Air Products popped 2.9 percent on the news. While they gave back a bit of the bump, the move shows Ackman is still a force Main Street investors should take note of.

In fact, Ackman’s shareholder activist moves have left his rivals in the dust. His bets gained an average of 117.98 percent, according to 13D Monitor, which calculates returns from the moment a regulatory filing is made acknowledging a 5% stake, typically the first move in the activist’s playbook.

The gain is far greater than his greatest activist rivals, Carl Icahn and Dan Loeb, 3DMonitor stats show.

Icahn’s picks are up an average 24 percent, while Loeb’s activist plays have a 15 percent gain, using the same 13DMonitor methodology.

The two activists publicly ridiculed Ackman 10 days ago for his Herbalife bet.

But Ken Squire, the founder of 13DMonitor, says investors should not have such a short -term focus. “Bill Ackman has a tremendous track record over the last several years. He’s very good.”

Ackman’s shorts aren’t included on 13DMonitor. But if they were, the huge gains on MBIA and AMBA would dwarf the current losses on Herbalife and push his returns even higher.

Squire says the critics are forgetting Ackman’s winners like Canadian Pacific, which has gained almost 100 percent, and the monster — General Growth Properties — which is up 1,662 percent since the filing.

Even Ackman detractors like Bob Chapman of Chapman Capital, who has opposed him on Herballife, are impressed by that trade.

“I don’t think there will ever be a better trade by anyone in this business,” said Chapman. “It’s the most amazing combination of brains/balls I’ve ever seen, and Ackman did it. Wow, wow and finally, wow.”