Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital revealed a new stake in Starbucks on Tuesday at a conference in New York.
The fund has 15.2 million shares, about $900 million worth. Starbucks shares popped more than 3 percent Tuesday afternoon amid the news. The move higher pushed the stock into positive territory for the year, up nearly 2 percent.
In the food and beverage space, Pershing also holds shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Restaurant Brands International, which is the parent of Burger King and Tim Horton’s, and Mondelez.
Pershing has been trying to turn itself around after several years of lackluster performance and some high-profile blowups. Since its peak of $20 billion in 2015, the fund has lost more than half of its assets as investors fled abysmal returns amid a bull market.
The fund has scored big this year on Chipotle, where it is the second-largest shareholder. Shares of the fast-food burrito chain are up 55 percent. It also made a quick $100 million of profit in a stake in Nike it sold earlier this year.
The activist investor said in August that the fund had taken a new undisclosed position that made up about 10 percent of the portfolio and that apparently was Starbucks. The fund also disclosed new stakes in United Technologies and Lowe’s Companies back then.
Ackman has already seen a nice return in Starbucks if he bought over the summer. Since the end of August, the stock is up more than 8 percent.
In a statement, Starbucks said, “We view the active, engaged dialogue that we have with shareholders as critical input into our strategic approach and we value constructive feedback on delivering long-term shareholder value. We look forward to maintaining a productive dialogue with Mr. Ackman as we do with all of our shareholders.”
Through September, Pershing Square had $8.3 billion of assets under management and its net performance was up 15.8 percent.
