Bill Ackman’s latest investment in an OC company is going much more smoothly than its predecessor.
The Pershing Square Capital exec made a rare (at the time) misstep in 2014 when he teamed up with Valeant Pharmaceuticals to buy then-Irvine-based Allergan, a $46 billion hostile takeover attempt most on Wall Street saw as a fait accompli.
Instead, Allergan proved the consensus wrong, rebuffed the offer and ultimately found a $66 billion white knight suitor with Actavis (which now plans a sale to AbbVie for $63 billion).
To add insult to injury, Ackman and Valeant in late ’17 settled a related insider trading charge by paying $290 million to a group of Allergan shareholders.
Ackman’s still investing in newly local companies, though. Last week, Chipotle’s (NYSE: CMG) stock reached its highest price since 2015, just prior a health scare that sent shares tumbling for the better part of two years.
Among the biggest winners of the stock surge under Chief Executive Brian Niccol, poached last year from Taco Bell: Pershing Square, which snapped up 10% of the company on the cheap in 2016 for about $1.2 billion. It still holds a sizeable stake in the $21 billion-valued company today.
Trade publication Restaurant Business last week calculated the private equity firm has made a $614 million profit on its burrito bet.
For more on OC’s top two restaurant chains, Taco Bell and Chipotle, as well as the rest of the area’s restaurant scene, see this week’s front-page story and assorted food-related articles.
Between the valet areas at Javier’s and Marché Moderne, the Crystal Cove Shopping Center already counted one of the area’s larger collection of snazzy cars on display come dinnertime.
That’s gone up a notch. Last week saw the formal opening of a new Aston Martin dealership at the Newport Beach center; about three dozen cars or so were on the lot during a July 13 event; one new Zagato Vanquish topped $900,000, a few used cars on display could be had for a little more than $100,000.
General Manager Jeff West said opening day was a success with the sale of 2019 Vantage (they can run $170,000 or more), and a few follow-up appointments had been set up for after the event with potential buyers.
Our Rick Reiff still breaks news—and he still works out, too. Sometimes at the same time. His report:
Orange County’s political divide is on full display at the 24 Hour Fitness in Aliso Viejo, where one of the six TV screens is exclusively tuned to and labeled for Fox News while an adjacent one is dedicated to CNN.
Your editor-at-large is told the measure was necessary to avoid continuous disputes among club members over access to one or the other channel, including a confrontation between 70-somethings that nearly came to blows.
