By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – Pershing Square (NYSE:SQ) Capital Management’s Bill Ackman and Stanley Druckenmiller of the Dequesne Family Office were both investors in Coupang LLC (NYSE:CPNG) ahead of the company’s IPO.
Coupang, which is often referred to as the South Korean Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), saw its shares go on a wild ride yesterday in its first day of trading.
After initially doubling from its IPO price of $35/share, the stock pared some of the gains and closed the day at $49.25 which gave it a market cap of over $84bln.
Billionaire Investors
Druckenmiller has been a pre-IPO investor in Coupang according to former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, who now sits on the board of Coupang.
Ackman, who shot to prominence when he debated his short thesis on Herbalife (NYSE:HLF) with Carl Icahn on CNBC, is also an long-time investor, according to the financial news channel.
Coupang IPO
The company raised $4.6bln in its initial public offering, the largest in the US in 2021 so far. The shares were sold at $35 each, above the target range of $32-$34 per share.
SoftBank’s Vision fund is also a major shareholder, holding about a third of the company. The Vision Fund looked in disarray a few years ago amid huge losses from its investments in WeWork and Uber (NYSE:UBER), however, it has made a roaring comeback with its stake in Coupang now worth as much as $29bln, following yesterday's successful stock market listing.