Finance

Bill Ackman's hedge fund had a brutal month

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Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of the hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management.  REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Pershing Square Capital, the hedge fund run by activist investor Bill Ackman, got crushed in September.

Pershing Square Holdings, the fund's publicly traded vehicle, fell 12.5% during the month. It's down 12.6% for the first nine months of the year, according to a performance update.

Ackman's returns were largely dragged down by the fund's large stake in Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

The Canadian pharmaceutical company's stock crashed this week after all of the Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent a letter to the committee's chairman, Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), asking him to subpoena the pharmaceutical company for documents related to price increases of acquired drugs.

Shares of Valeant fell by more than 22% in September.

In mid-March, Ackman disclosed that his fund bought 19,473,933 Valeant shares, or an approximately 5.7% stake. Ackman is the third-largest shareholder.

Pershing Square was the best-performing hedge fund last year, returning 40.4%.

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Julia is formerly a senior reporter covering finance. She wrote for Business Insider from 2011 to 2016. She studied broadcast journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.While at UNC, she contributed to the award-winning student-run newscast "Carolina Week" as a reporter. She was a member of the university’s equestrian team competing in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. She is a member of the New York Junior League. She volunteers with Project Sunshine and is a mentor to an area high-school student via Futures & Options.Julia is a Half Ironman finisher and a New York City Marathon finisher. She was Miss New York United States 2014.