This was an easy one. Some years the Asshat award is deliberated, mulled over for weeks amidst cigar smoke filled rooms strewn with supporting documents for prospective candidates. However, in the year of our Lord 2013, Bill Ackman stole the show, without a contest.
It was an especially humiliating year for Bill, due to two of his high profile positions, long JCP, short HLF, continuously punching him in the proverbial face, with special thanks to Carl Icahn. With Ackman’s support, Ron Johnson, ex CEO of JCP, nearly destroyed the century plus old retailer in little less than a year, seeing its share price carved in half, then carved in half, yet again. Following Ackman’s infamous “XMAS PUMP” of 2012, shares of HLF pretty much tripled in 2013, taking hundreds of millions of Bill’s money in the process.
At the same time, Carl Icahn played antagonist and destroyer to Bill’s credentials as a top shelf money manager, firmly placing Pershing Square into “Camp LAMBDA, LAMBDA, LAMBDA“, selling cream pies with Darth Vader helmets on.
Maybe Bill and co are working on some special “aero-dynamically” superior javelins and will take revenge upon Carl and other jocks in 2014. However, until that day comes, he will remain an Asshat, forever remembered as the guy who blew up on the centre stage, losing to a 150 year old guy in a vitamin stock, wearing Joe Fresh shorts and stealing away coupons from senior citizens.
Congrats to “Montauk Bil” Ackman.
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hubris comes before the fall
the pits of hell is where the haters going….
I prefer, “Pride is a fool’s fortress”
couldn’t have happened to a more egregious fella
That was an awesome exchange! good lord he Ackman got bitch slapped on National TV and all the trader’s were in the background going….OH AH EH
Likely protected himself with options, so probably not as bad as it looks on the outside. If not, would he would certainly be the asshat for the decade.
Superb.
Moral of Ackerman story-
Never follow or trust a guy who does whatever he does to his eyebrows (no metrosexual).
Confucius say he who follows a guy who phonies up his eyebrows deserves to fail.
Nice Merry Christmas look Boss.
Betty Childs, Pi-Delta-Pi: Nerds saw me naked!
Jews fighting amongst themselves …what else is new?
I don’t think this has anything to do with ethnicity.
I love that you referred to is as “ethnicity” because that seriously is what it is. And you’re right, its not about that. Just sad when they bash each other on tv and Icahn compares Ackman to the crying little Jewish boy on the playground.
Well, yes, I agree that Icahn played this one dirty. He purposely did that to get under Ackman’s skin.
To some people money trumps all, even community.
Unfortunately, for some money trumps community (see: Bernie Maddoff). If I was Ackman, I would have challened Carl to an old fashioned Gentlemen’s duel.
Carl crashed Ackman’s Bat Mitzvah. As it turns out, Ack Ack a dack (extra Mars attack) couldn’t spin the dreidel so well afterall.
Oh, and asshat or not, He is and will forever be wealthier then everyone on iBankCoin combined …just sayin.
Yea, but he will probably die of a self inflicted gun shot wound.
At the current rate (a very large assumption as managing 10 billion is much more difficult than managing tens of thousands), I believe all of IBC (even pikers) will surpass him by 2035.
IBC – home of the future Billionaires (extra TWTR).
HEAR HEAR
Is there public records that Ackman still short HLF? I’d imagine he’d covered long ago.
Was thinking about this last night. This will, likely, go down as the least controversial annual asshat pick of all time. Rivalries aside, Carl Icahn absolutely crushed it this year.