Bill Ackman and Neri Oxman buy 5% stake in Tel Aviv Stock Exchange

Business

By Shannon Thaler

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman and his Israeli-born wife, Neri Oxman, purchased a 4.9% equity stake in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Ackman, a Harvard graduate who pushed for the ouster of the Ivy League school’s president Claudine Gay, has been an outspoken critic of the rise in antisemitism since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in Israel.

The TASE announced the transaction in a press release, noting that it “reflects a strong vote of confidence in both the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the Israeli economy at large.”

The deal is part of a roughly 18.5% stake sale to foreign and local investors for 353 million shekels, or $95 million, according to calculations by Bloomberg, meaning the couple paid about $25 million for their share.

Ackman — the founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, which was recently named among the world’s top-performing hedge funds — and Oxman were the only “prominent buyers” to be named in the statement about the sale, which was priced at a 2% discount to the TASE’s latest close.

The country’s economy has suffered since the terror attack, which killed 1,200, and Israel’s subsequent military incursion into the Gaza Strip.

Shares on the exchange jumped as much as 9.4% following the announcement, putting it on track to make up for all the losses it experienced since the outbreak of the war, according to Bloomberg.

“TASE intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for investment in its technology infrastructure,” the bourse said in the press release.

Representatives for Ackman and Oxman declined to comment.

The 57-year-old Ackman launched a campaign to oust Gay when she would not condemn more than 30 Harvard student groups that published a letter holding Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ terror attack.

Gay drew further scorn after her disastrous appearance at a congressional hearing on Dec. 5 where she refused to say that anyone calling for the genocide of Jews at the university would be punished. 

She resigned earlier this month after it was revealed that the embattled president plagiarized sections of her doctoral thesis.

Ackman was accused of “bullying” Gay into resigning, and his wife, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became the target of an investigation by Business Insider that alleged she plagiarized multiple paragraphs of her 2010 doctoral dissertation.

Oxman, an architectural designer, acknowledged that she didn’t properly attribute a few quotes in her dissertation but Ackman has attempted to make the distinction that her gaffes did not amount to plagiarism.

He bashed the outlet’s editor, John Cook, as “a known anti-Zionist,” and demanded a retraction.

“My wife is Israeli,” the billionaire added, taking aim at the possible motives behind Business Insider’s coverage of Oxman.

BI’s parent company Axel Springer has stood by Cook and the publication’s reporting.

Ackman has since threatened to sue Business Insider, calling the outlet “toast.”