Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman / Facebook
Bill Ackman, a graduate of both Harvard College and the Harvard Business School (MBA), is still calling for Harvard President Claudine Gay to be removed, but that her firing will come too late to save the IVY League School’s reputation. At the same time, Ackman is also expecting the US Federal Reserve to cut rates and is making his plans for such a move.
“We’re betting that the Federal Reserve is going to have to cut rates more quickly than people expect,” Ackman said on “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.” “That’s the current macro bet that we have on.”
As for Harvard’s continuing problems with antisemitism and the school’s failure to act against the many groups supporting Hamas on its campus, Bill Ackman said, “If Harvard President Gay resigns, it does not restore Harvard’s reputation. That would only begin when the Corporation board members acknowledge that they made a bad choice of leader, which they have been unwilling to do.”
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Many have been calling for Harvard’s President Claudine Gay to resign after her miserable performance when testifying before the US Congress and failing to condemn the antisemitism proliferating on her school’s campus.
But Bill Ackman pointed out that the school’s president is not the only one who needs to take responsibility here saying, “Ultimately, the buck stops with the Harvard Corporation board. They need to act now.”
“The Harvard Corporation Board is not an honorarium. It is a serious societal responsibility,” he added. “Each hour of inaction further damages the institution for whom they have a fiduciary responsibility. The board’s actions and inactions to date are indefensible in light of their fiduciary responsibilities to Harvard, the faculty, the student body, the alumni community and other societal stakeholders.”
Bill Ackman is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund management company. He’s known for his activist investing approach, which involves taking large stakes in companies and pushing for changes in their management or strategies.
