Key points
- Pershing Square disclosed a new Netflix (NFLX) position of 3.15 million shares, 4.9% of the fund.
- Bill Ackman sold Netflix in 2022 for a loss above $400 million, near the lows.
- Split-adjusted, he sold around $22.50 a share; Netflix trades near $77 now, more than triple that.
- Pershing Square says Netflix "has effectively won the streaming wars."
Bill Ackman's hedge fund owns Netflix (NFLX) again. Pershing Square Capital Management disclosed a new position of 3.15 million shares in its interim report on Thursday, August 13. The stake is 4.9% of the fund's portfolio.
Pershing Square bought Netflix once before, in early 2022, and put more than $1 billion into it. The fund sold within months, after Netflix reported its first subscriber decline in more than a decade. It booked a loss of more than $400 million. The sale came near the stock's lows.
Netflix split its stock 10-for-1 in November 2025. On that adjusted basis, Pershing Square sold near $22.50 a share in 2022. Netflix bottomed near $16 a few weeks after the fund got out. It then climbed to about $134 by June 2025, close to six times the exit price.
The stock has fallen more than 40% since that June 2025 high. It closed at $74.21 on Wednesday and traded near $77 on Thursday. Netflix now changes hands at more than triple the price Pershing Square sold at in 2022. Buying the same stocks as famous investors is a common approach, though the data on copying hedge funds, Congress and insiders is mixed.
Netflix was one of six new positions the fund added in the first half of 2026. The others were Visa (V), Mastercard (MA), S&P Global (SPGI), Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and Alcon (ALC). Four of the five run on fees rather than product sales: Visa and Mastercard on card payments, S&P Global on ratings and indexes, Intercontinental Exchange on exchanges and trading. Alcon, the fifth, makes eye-care products.
Microsoft (MSFT) stayed the fund's largest holding at 1.52 million shares, 12.4% of the portfolio. Uber (UBER) was next at 7.63 million shares, about 12%. Meta Platforms (META) ranked third. Pershing Square also lists its U.S. stock positions in quarterly 13F filings.
Pershing Square tied the new purchase to Netflix's lower valuation. In the fund's view, the business kept growing while the stock fell, so Netflix got cheaper against its earnings. The fund said Netflix's forward price-to-earnings ratio has come down from more than 40 times to about 21 times. It expects Netflix to grow revenue at a double-digit rate, with content costs rising more slowly than sales and lifting margins. "Netflix has effectively won the streaming wars," the fund wrote.
