Ackman's Lunch Investment

A story about how Andrew Wilkinson turned a $50,000 charity lunch with Bill Ackman into a highly profitable investment opportunity.

"In 2017 or 2018, I bought a charity lunch with Bill Ackman. At the time, everyone made fun of me like 'who's this idiot from Canada that would spend $50,000 on a lunch.'

I had already invested $5 million in his holding company - my largest investment outside of tech businesses. Bill had a series of challenging investments, so his stock traded way down. When I looked at it, I could buy a dollar of amazing stock for 65 cents. The holding company owned about 10 stocks - Lowe's, Howard Hughes Corp, Chipotle - really good blue chip businesses.

I didn't necessarily think Bill was a genius, I just thought it was a very cheap stock. When I saw this charity lunch come up, I thought 'sweet, I can grill this guy and see if I like him.' I didn't think I'd be doing business with him - it was a pinch-me moment when we ended up investing in stuff together.

The stock has done really well - doubled or tripled since I bought it. He actually had a bet where he invested $25 million and it turned into $2.7 billion, and that was in that holding company that I'm an investor in."