Pershing Square has taken a new position in Microsoft, with the size to be disclosed in a 13F filing later on Friday. The stock is down roughly 16% year-to-date.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Bill Ackman has bought Microsoft. Pershing Square\u2019s chief executive <\/span>said on X on Friday morning<\/span><\/a> that the fund had taken a new position in the software company after its recent share-price decline, with the size to be disclosed in a regulatory filing later in the day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ackman\u2019s stated rationale was that the market is mispricing the enterprise franchise rather than the AI one. Investors have underestimated Microsoft\u2019s software \u2018given its deeply embedded role across enterprises and highly attractive price-value proposition\u2019, he wrote, framing the position as a quality-compounder bet on the installed base rather than a directional call on Azure capex.<\/span><\/p>\n The timing is the substance of the trade. Microsoft shares are down roughly 16% year-to-date and have traded near $413 since late April, when chief financial officer Amy Hood used the company\u2019s <\/span>fiscal Q3 results<\/span><\/a> to raise full-year capital expenditure guidance to about $190bn, well above the roughly $155bn analysts had penciled in. <\/span><\/p>\n TNW City Coworking space – Where your best work happ<\/a>ens<\/p>\n A workspace designed for growth, collaboration, and endless networking opportunities in the heart of tech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The results themselves were a beat. Azure grew 40%, the AI run-rate hit $37bn, and total revenue cleared $82.9bn. The stock fell anyway, on what one widely circulated buy-side note called <\/span>the $190bn capex plan that repriced AI<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Ackman has run this play before this year. Pershing Square <\/span>disclosed a new stake in Meta in February<\/span><\/a>, three weeks after the latter\u2019s own capex-driven sell-off, with Ackman describing the position at the time as a \u2018deeply discounted valuation\u2019. <\/span><\/p>\n The Microsoft entry follows the same shape: a megacap dragged lower by an AI-spending guide, framed by Ackman as an opportunity to buy a high-quality franchise at a temporarily de-rated multiple.<\/span><\/p>\n Funds running more than $100m are required to file Form 13F disclosures of US-listed positions within 45 days of quarter-end, which makes Friday a heavy day for hedge-fund reading. <\/span><\/p>\n Pershing Square\u2019s last 13F, covering the December quarter, showed eleven positions and roughly $16bn in disclosed US holdings concentrated in Brookfield, Uber, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta. Microsoft did not appear. Today\u2019s filing will show whether the firm has trimmed any existing names to fund the new one or sized it from cash.<\/span><\/p>\n The trade also lands inside a wider AI-infrastructure debate. Hyperscalers have <\/span>committed more than $650bn to AI capex<\/span> across 2026, on the combined Q1 numbers from Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Apple, and the market is now pricing the question of when, or whether, that spend converts cleanly into operating earnings. <\/span><\/p>\n Ackman is, in effect, arguing that Microsoft\u2019s existing Office, Windows and Azure book of business is enough to clear the bar, separately from the AI optionality.<\/span><\/p>\n Microsoft\u2019s deep integration of OpenAI\u2019s models across Copilot, Azure and the developer stack has been the dominant narrative in the company\u2019s repricing over the past three years (<\/span>TNW has tracked the arc<\/span>). The capex bill is the cost of holding that lead. Ackman\u2019s bet is that the enterprise software business underneath it is being given less credit than it should.<\/span><\/p>\n Pershing Square has not disclosed the size of the position or the average purchase price. The 13F filing is expected later on Friday US time.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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