Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of New York City-based Pershing Square Capital Management, has dedicated 26.5 million shares of stock in South Korean ecommerce firm Coupang for charities.
The donated shares are valued at approximately $1.3 billion (U.S.). According to CNBC, the donation represents the entirety of Ackman’s Coupang holdings.
Coupang is a South Korean ecommerce firm similar to Amazon.com. The company had a banner year during 2020, as consumers sheltering in place during the global coronavirus pandemic increasingly turned to online shopping.
The shares are going to Pershing Square Foundation – a private family foundation in which Ackman is a co-trustee, a donor-advised fund and a nonprofit Ackman did not name.
In a tweet announcing his donations, Ackman said he was “a very fortunate day-one investor” in Coupang. According to Markets Insider, Ackman became involved with Coupang during a seed round of funding in 2014. Other participating funders include asset manager BlackRock and venture capital organization Sequoia Capital.
According to its website, the Pershing Square Foundation supports people and organizations “that tackle important social issues and deliver scalable and sustainable impact across the globe.” The foundation has committed more than $400 million in grants and investments to promote economic justice, education, health and medicine and social justice since it was established in 2006.
The fair market value of the assets held by Pershing Square Foundation for the financial year ended Sept. 30, 2019 was $237.8 million, according to the most recent Form 990-PF available.
During that year, the Pershing Square Foundation distributed $250,000 to the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund DAF, which in turn distributed the entire amount to other publicly supported organizations, according to the 990-PF.
Other recipients from the foundation included the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, Blue Sky Foundation, Broad Institute, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Challenged Athletes, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Connecticut Public Broadcasting, Dalton School, David Lynch Foundation, Echoing Green, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Harlem Junior Tennis and education Program, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Jerusalem Foundation, Junior Tennis Champions Center, Justfix Inc., LEAD Africa, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Mayo Clinic, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Morovia Football Academy, Mount Desert Island Hospital, National academy of Sciences, New York Historical Society, New York University School of Medicine, NYC FIRST, Park Avenue Armory, Petey Greene Program, Planned Parenthood of New York City, Polaris Project, President and Fellows of Harvard College, Robin Hood Foundation, Rockefeller University, Row New York, Sail to Prevail, Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy, Signature Theater Company, Southern Documentary Fund, Thanks USA, Trustees of Columbia University in NY, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Foundation, Union for Reform Judaism, University of Oxford Development Trust, Utah Film Center, Vassar College, Vera Institute of Justice, Weill Cornell Medicine and Women’s Way.
