Bill Ackman: “The TASE is a royalty on the growth of Startup Nation available at a bargain price”

“We wanted to buy more but that’s all they had available for sale. Worth a close look. We view TASE as a permanent holding,” hedge fund legend Bill Ackman wrote on X on Tuesday in regard to the deal in which he and wife Neri Oxman purchased 4.9% of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) earlier this year.

Ackman’s comments came following the interview in Calcalist with the CEO of Jefferies, Rich Handler, who led the sale of NIS 353 million-worth of TASE shares to local and foreign investors.

“I am grateful to Rich Handler for bringing Neri and me the opportunity to invest in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The best businesses in the world are capital-light franchises which own the right to collect royalties on a compounding base of assets,” Ackman wrote. “TASE is a unique non-disruptible franchise in one of the most entrepreneurial economies in the world. The TASE is a royalty on the growth of Startup Nation available at a bargain price because of the war and associated uncertainty. I was very impressed with management, their business plan and their technological capabilities. The company was effectively a mutually owned entity held by the big Israeli banks. It now is a public company with entrepreneurial management.”

Bill Ackman and wife Neri Oxman.

Ackman was the largest investor in the stock exchange transaction, in which many other foreign investors also participated. This marks the billionaire's first investment in Israel, whose fortune is estimated at more than $4 billion, amassed through the Pershing Square hedge fund he founded and currently manages, with assets totaling $18 billion. Ackman is regarded as one of Wall Street's most activist investors, known for expressing his views prominently. However, since the beginning of the war in Israel, he has primarily used his platform to combat anti-Semitism, support Israel, and lead the charge against anti-Semitism on Ivy League university campuses in the U.S. As a Harvard graduate, Ackman played a pivotal and vocal role in the removal of Claudine Gay from the university presidency.

Ackman also explained why the investment in TASE was made through his personal fortune and not Pershing Square. “First we tried to buy enough to matter for the funds, but the company had only $25m for sale, and there was no reasonable prospect of buying enough to matter. Our typical position size for stocks today is $1.5 billion or more. Such a small position would still require investment team time, but without any impact on our returns. I have not bought a public stock in 20 years as doing so requires compliance approval. In this case I sought and obtained approval. I did so because I thought it was a good investment with the added benefit of supporting Israel at a challenging time for the country.”

In the interview with Calcalist, Handler noted how the interest in acquiring a position in TASE far exceeded the available supply of shares. “There are a lot of people who were very frustrated that they missed the deal to purchase a stake in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange after they saw it. I'm talking about American businessmen, very familiar names. It's true that they are pro-Israel, but they are first and foremost sophisticated investors. Not all of them are Jewish either, this was not a deal by Jews or pro-Israelis, but a deal by veteran businessmen who wanted to make money. Therefore, if the stock exchange would want another deal of this type, the demand for its shares is there,” noted Handler