National Post – It has been a quiet month on the surface for Canadian Tire Corp. since New York hedge fund manager William Ackman stirred up a flurry of interest in the retailer.
But behind the scenes, a report on Canada’s largest general goods chain by Mr. Ackman’s firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, has been making the rounds at hedge fund and private equity firms, and it is generating a lot of discussion as to whether “The Tire” could really be worth nearly double its current trading price, as Mr. Ackman and his billion-dollar hedge fund have suggested.
Mr. Ackman, managing partner at Pershing, got things rolling after a speech at the annual Ira W. Sohn Investment Research Conference in New York, a charitable event mainly attended by hedge-fund professionals, where he highlighted Canadian Tire as one of his best investment ideas.
The stock traded almost eight times its average daily volume the next day, and gained almost 9% at one point during the session.
In an interview last month, Mr. Ackman said he owned “a lot” of the company’s subordinate voting shares. Pershing’s report dated May, 2006, said it started accumulating the shares recently.
