BOSTON/NEW YORK, March 8 (Reuters) - Hedge fund manager James Dinan is wagering that ailing retailer JC Penney Corp will continue to perform poorly and in the process he is taking on the company's biggest bull, billionaire investor William Ackman.

Dinan, who heads York Capital Management which manages $15.1 billion, this week told an audience at a Morgan Stanley investing conference in New York that the firm is shorting JC Penney's debt, effectively taking a dim view of its future.

That puts Dinan at odds with Ackman and his $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund. Ackman has become a big JC Penney cheerleader since his firm started buying the stock in 2010.

Ackman is now under pressure from big-name investors taking the opposite side on two of his positions - the other being nutritional supplements company Herbalife Ltd in which he has a $1 billion short position and has been battling hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb and legendary investor Carl Icahn, who have both taken long positions.

A spokeswoman for York declined to comment on whether the hedge fund is betting against the retailer's debt.

Morgan Stanley's high yield bond desk is also betting against JC Penney bonds, said a person familiar with the firm. The firm is betting on a decline in the value of the retailer's bonds using credit default swaps.

A Morgan Stanley spokesman declined to comment.

JC Penney is emerging as one of the more difficult trades for Ackman's Pershing Square, which owns 39 million shares, or 18 percent of the company. Ackman joined the board of JC Penney in 2011 and helped bring in Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson, a former Apple executive, to lead a turnaround of the middle-market retailer and bring in more fashionable merchandise.

That strategy is far from showing signs of paying off and the retailer reported last week that its comparable sales dropped 31.7 percent in the winter holiday season quarter as its move to more upscale product lines failed to catch on with shoppers. As a result, its shares tumbled and are now down 24 percent this year.

A spokeswoman for Ackman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

York Capital is far from alone in betting against JC Penney. Many hedge fund managers are also shorting the retailer's stock, leaving it to rank as the third most heavily shorted stock on the Russell 1000 Index this week, according to data provided by the Bespoke Investment Group, which tracks the data.

At the industry conference, Dinan did not give details about his JC Penney trade.

Speaking in very general terms, Dinan said his firm uses shorts to hedge the portfolio. Discussing JC Penney's biggest investor, Pershing Square, Dinan said shareholder activism used by Ackman to force changes at a company "works great when the tide is rising."

But he said Ackman seemed to be losing control of his destiny now that Vornado Realty Trust, which started buying when Ackman did, sold half of its JC Penney stake. Vornado's sale was disclosed earlier this week.

With JC Penney's share price sinking, this bet might ultimately prove to be more damaging to Ackman's performance and reputation than his big short bet on nutritional supplement company Herbalife.

With Herbalife, the battle lines seem more sharply drawn as Daniel Loeb and Carl Icahn very publicly took the other side of Ackman's short position. But he still sits on a big gain there, while he has a loss on JC Penney.

Meanwhile, other hedge fund managers have made money shorting JC Penney's stock.

Two managers who shorted the stock said their view is that, while CEO Johnson might be the only man able to resuscitate JC Penney, he could be running out of time for his vision to take hold. Vornado's sale, for example, underscores that investors and possibly board members are running out of patience. Vornado's Steven Roth joined the JC Penney board at the same time as Ackman did.

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Carl Icahn just upped the ante in his war against hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.

According to an SEC filing, Icahn bought 322,716 more shares of Herbalife at $41.45 a share.

Herbalife has been a battleground for hedge fund managers since last December, when Bill Ackman announced that he was shorting the stock and would donate the profits of his short to charity.

Ackman claims that Herbalife, a nutrition firm with a multi-level marketing business model, is actually a pyramid scheme.

Earlier this year, Icahn jumped on the other side of Ackman's trade.

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The National Consumers League wants the Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation on Herbalife.

"Herbalife’s business practices have recently come under intense investor scrutiny, and NCL is now calling on federal regulators to examine both the claims lodged against Herbalife and Herbalife’s responses," wrote the NCL in a press release.

The recent scrutiny was triggered by Bill Ackman and his hedge fund Pershing Square Capital.

Ackman has accused Herbalife of being an illegal pyramid scheme, and he's convinced the stock will go to $0.

Pershing Square was quick to file its response, which Business Insider has obtained.

Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P. Issues Statement Regarding National Consumers League’s Call for FTC Investigation into Herbalife

NEW YORK, March 12, 2013//-Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P. (“Pershing Square”) today released the following statement regarding the National Consumers League’s request for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Herbalife as a potential pyramid scheme.

“We are pleased that the National Consumers League, the nation's oldest and one of the most respected consumer protection organizations, has requested that the FTC launch an investigation of Herbalife. We believe that a thorough investigation of Herbalife will reveal it to be a pyramid scheme that has harmed millions of consumers in more than 80 countries around the world.”

The National Consumers League’s letter to the FTC can be seen here: http://www.nclnet.org/images/PDF/ftc%20letter%20on%20herbalife.pdf

The National Consumers League’s press release regarding the letter can be seen here: http://www.nclnet.org/newsroom/press-releases/750-national-consumers-league-calls-on-ftc-to-investigate-allegations-against-herbalife

Please go to www.factsaboutherbalife.com to learn more about the company.

SEE ALSO: We Have Never Seen Anything Like Bill Ackman's Dizzying Takedown Of Herbalife >

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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.

In addition to commenting on his high-profile current investments, Pershing Square Capital’s Bill Ackman in a recent interview with Value Investor Insight describes the general company traits he looks for in both active and passive investments, why a high public profile is an important element of his strategy, whether his thesis on J.C. Penney has evolved, what lessons he’s learned from a few prominent mistakes, and why his short conviction on Herbalife is as high as ever.

Starting at a basic level, how would you characterize your investing strategy?

We rely on concentrated research to identify great businesses that are trading at highly discounted valuations because investors have overreacted to negative macro or company-specific events. That’s the time-arbitrage part of the strategy, taking advantage when the market reacts to short-term factors that have little impact on long-term intrinsic values. Our greatest competitive advantage, though, comes from using our stake in a company to intervene in the decision-making, strategy, management or structure of the business. We don’t like waiting for the market to be a catalyst.

Why is Warren Buffett willing to pay 20% above the highest price at which H.J. Heinz stock has ever traded, even after it’s had 20 quarters of great results? The answer is that control is very valuable. Not just for the bragging rights, but because you can change strategy, you can redo the cost structure, you can change the tax structure, you can sell off underperforming assets or hidden assets. The control premium is really telling you that the current management team and board are not optimizing the value of the business. For a financial buyer, which is essentially what Buffett is in this case, you’re buying it because it’s a great business and because you believe you can make the price paid end up looking cheap.

That’s very similar to what we try to do: Buy high-quality businesses at a price that is not reflective of the intrinsic value of the business as it is, and certainly not reflective of what the intrinsic value would be if it were run better. That allows us to capture a double discount. That’s a benefit we can have over private equity. They can buy a company and run it better to extract incremental value, but they’re typically paying the highest price in a competitive auction, so they don’t get that first discount. We don’t get full control, but because we have a track record of making money for other investors, we can often exert enough control to make an impact. With Canadian Pacific Railway [CP], we won a proxy contest and with our 14% stake were able to appoint 8 of the 14 directors and recruited one of the best railroad executives of all time, Hunter Harrison, to be CEO. That has created a lot of value.

How do you define a great business?

We like simple, predictable, free-cash-flow generative, resilient and sustainable businesses with strong profit-growth opportunities and/or scarcity value. The type of business Warren Buffett would say has a moat around it.

We’ve done almost nothing in energy or other cyclical businesses. We avoid healthcare because of all the regulatory uncertainty. We’ve done nothing active in financial services, except on the short side with MBIA. When you’re putting 8%, 12% or 15% of your money in something, it’s not a day trade. You have to focus first and foremost on high-quality businesses that can’t blow up and should grow in value over time.

Read the rest of this interview at Advisor Perspectives >

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Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman recently did a Q&A  "Value Investor Insight", a newsletter run by Whitney Tilson and John Heins.

Advisor Perspectives has an excerpt.

One of the questions posed to Ackman had to do with him being in the press frequently.

A lot of hedge fund managers won't ever speak to the press, especially when it comes to their short positions.  

Ackman, who runs $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, is arguably one of the most media savvy fund managers out there.

Right now, he's in the spot light for his $1 billion short position on Herbalife, a nutrition supplement seller he claims is a pyramid scheme.  

He explains why he's so public. From VII: 

Maintaining a high public profile appears to be important to the execution of your strategy. Why is that?

The press is a necessary element of the strategy. Look at something like Procter & Gamble. We haven’t run a proxy contest. We haven’t made a public presentation. All we did is buy some stock. That became publicly known and immediately the press was all over the company and what they were or weren’t doing right. That saved us a lot of time and energy. On solid, high-profile boards of companies that are underperforming, sometimes the directors just need a little bit of a push. One of the best pushes is a reputational push, which a press spotlight can administer.

That spotlight can be particularly important in our shorts. We don’t short on valuation, but in situations where we believe a company is violating the law, or has misleading or inaccurate accounting, or has a potential regulatory problem. In these cases the attention really matters. If you’re a regulator with any sort of oversight of Herbalife [HLF], how can you ignore it when a reputable investor who has spent 18 months researching it says it is a certainty that the company is a pyramid scheme? Imagine if I’m right and they’ve done nothing on a company that’s in the paper everyday.

Read more of the interview at Advisor Perspectives.

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Activist investor manager Bill Ackman, the CEO of $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, has released a new presentation taking on Herbalife. 

Late last year, Ackman publicly announced that he's shorting more than a 20 million shares of Herbalife, a multi-level marketing firm that sell nutrition products.

The premise of his short thesis is that he believes the company is a pyramid scheme and that the government will be induced to investigate the company. Ackman has a price target of zero on his short.  In other words, he thinks the company will fail.

Taking the other side, a number of hedge fund managers have snapped up big long positions in Herbalife, most notably Daniel Loeb of Third Point and Ackman's long-time rival Carl Icahn. 

Ackman's latest presentation compares Herbalife to Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing, a multi-level marketing company that was accused of operating as a pyramid scheme by the Federal Trade Commission and Attorneys General from Kentucky, North Carolina and Illinois.

We've included his new slide deck "Side-by-Side: A Comparison of Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing and Herbalife" in the slides that follow.  

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The Sohn Investment Conference is coming up in May.

The high-profile hedge fund industry event brings together some of the top fund managers to present their investment views and picks. Business Insider will be there covering it. 

Another key part of the Sohn conference is the annual investment contest for people to submit their best long or short investment ideas.  The contest is judged by some of the industry's biggest names — Bill Ackman, David Einhorn, Seth Klarman, Michael Prince and Joel Greenblatt.  

If you have a long or short idea and want to get the chance to have top fund managers review it, then this is the contest for you.  The winner also gets to present their idea on stage in front of thousands of investors. 

Here's the release with all the details:  

 NEW YORK, NY, (March 20, 2013) —Today, The Sohn Conference Foundation, sponsor of the original and premier investment idea conference, announced the launch of its Investment Idea Contest ahead of its 18th annual conference, which takes place on May 8, 2013 from 12:00pm – 6pm at New York City’s Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. The contest is intended to encourage anyone with an investment idea to showcase that idea in front of the world’s leading global investment minds. Contest participants are to submit their best investment idea by 5pm (ET) on May 2, 2013; entries can be any marketable security (long or short) with a market capitalization above $1 billion. The winner will be selected based on the judges’ determination of the most compelling investment idea over a one-year horizon.

A distinguished group of judges led by Joel Greenblatt and including Bill Ackman, David Einhorn, Seth Klarman and Michael Price will determine the most compelling investment idea. The winner will present the investment idea in front of approximately 3,000 people at the renowned Sohn Investment Conference.

“The Sohn Investment Conference is renowned for bringing fresh investment insights and strategies to the forefront of the global financial community, providing a stage for the most savvy minds on Wall Street to share their insights,” said Daniel Nir, Co-Chair of the Sohn Conference Foundation.  “The Investment Contest expands that stage for both veterans and up-and-coming investors, offering a unique opportunity to be recognized by industry leaders.”

For more information or to enter the contest, please visit https://app.wizehive.com/appform/login/sohn2013. 

For more information or to register for the conference, please visit www.sohnconference.com.

SEE ALSO: 27-Year-Old Analyst Ryan Fusaro Wowed Everyone At The Value Investing Congress With His Investment Idea

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Legendary hedge fund manager George Soroshas reportedly asked to withdraw a lot of money from Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management.  

This news was buried in Juliet Chung's piece on the hedge fund war over Herbalife that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Monday:  

A win in Herbalife also would come as Mr. Ackman is trying to raise billions in permanent investor money, which would give him more control over his investments, and as Soros Fund Management within the past several months has asked to withdraw several hundred million dollars from the $12.5 billion firm. A Soros spokesman declined to comment.

Ackman has publicly declared that he's shorting more than 20 million shares of Herbalife, a multi-level marketing firm that sells nutrition products. He believes Herbalife is a pyramid scheme and has a price target of $0. 

[Hat Tip: ValueWalk]

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Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman actually had a really solid first quarter in 2012 despite the JCPenney and Herbalife bets.  

The New York Post's Michelle Celarier reports: 

No hedgie endured the media’s harsh glare more than Ackman, whose $12.39 billion Pershing Square managed a 6 percent gain despite losses in JCPenney and his $1 billion short on Herbalife, which ended the quarter up 14 percent. Troubled Penney was Ackman’s worst performer, down 23 percent.

Ackman’s gains were propelled by his less controversial holdings, including Canadian Pacific Railway, up 28 percent, and Procter & Gamble, which gained 13.5 percent.

Much of the focus on Ackman has been his big bets on JCPenney and Herbalife.

Pershing Square is the biggest shareholder of JCPenney with a 18.11% stake, or 39,075,771 shares, according the latest 13F filing. So far, he has taken a bath on the stock. 

As for Herbalife, Ackman has publicly declared that he's shorting more than 20 million of the multi-level marketing company that sells nutrition products.  Ackman believes Herbalife is a "pyramid scheme" and has a price target of $0. 

Not everyone agrees with Ackman's short thesis on Herbalife, though. Both Carl Icahn and Daniel Loeb have snapped up big long positions in the company.  

Pershing Square's performance is still behind the S&P 500, which has gained 10 percent this year. 

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CNBC is reporting that Ron Johnsonhas been ousted as CEO at JC Penney, and will be replaced by his predecessor, Mike Ullman.

It's a move that's not unexpected after huge losses, strategic missteps, and a 97 percent pay cut.  But the final blow that pushed Johnson over the edge was losing hedge fund manager Bill Ackman's support.

Ackman called the execution of Johnson's strategy "something very close to a disaster."

This is a big deal because the billionaire investment was the guy who lured Johnson from Apple and for a long time his biggest supporter. Ackman also holds a seat on JCPenney's board and his hedge fund owns 18 percent of the company's shares.

In August, in a letter to shareholders, Ackman said he was still confident in Johnson, but was already worried about execution:

I have complete confidence in Ron Johnson and the new management team he has assembled to execute a total transformation of this iconic U.S. retailer. Ron has been at the job for eight months and has made remarkable progress in many of the requirements for the turnaround. The execution has not, however, been flawless. In particular, the company has had a somewhat confusing pricing message and has struggled to communicate the new business model and every-day value available in the store.

Ackman was a firm believer in Johnson's strategy, a position he explained at length in a presentation at the Ira Sohn investment conference. But in the end, the execution was so poor and the losses so huge that Johnson lost his support. 

SEE ALSO: THE RON JOHNSON DISASTER TIMELINE: How The Apple Guru Failed At JCPenney

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The news that Ron Johnson was out sent JC Penney's stock up nearly 11 percent. Then we found out that Mike Ullman would be his interim replacement hit, and the stock immediately plummeted. 

There's a reason for that. 

While Johnson erred on the side of changing too much too fast. Ullman is on the other, equally bad side of the spectrum. In his 6 years at JC Penney, he failed to make the changes the company desperately needed. 

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman explained his support for Johnson in a 2012 presentation. We've excerpted the parts that explain why Ullman failed.

Ullman's predecessor Allen Questrom helped turn JC Penney around after it nearly collapsed in 2001.

When Ullman took over in 2005, however, there were still fundamental problems.

Under his management, the stock fell.

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Hedge fund titan Bill Ackman, the CEO of $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, is having an epic morning. 

Ackman, who is frequently in the in the media spotlight, is all over financial news for Herbalife and JCPenney. 

Prior to the opening bell, shares of Herbalife, Ackman's big short, were halted for news pending and there was a delayed opening.

At first, people were speculating that his long-time rival Carl Icahn was going to make a move since Ackman was already having a rough go of it with JCPenney this morning.  That would have been a double whammy for sure.

Anyway, the news is that Herbalife's auditor KPMG is resigning, DealBook reports. 

The reason is a senior partner inside KPMG's Los Angeles offices was providing non-public information about Herbalife to an unnamed person. That person has been fired. 

According to CNBC's Scott Wapner, the third party was not related to Ackman or Icahn, according to an unnamed source. 

The stock hasn't resumed trading yet. 

Ackman is shorting more than 20 million shares of Herbalife, a multi-level marketing company that sells nutrition products. He believes the company is a pyramid scheme and has a price target of $0. 

Not everyone agrees with Ackman's thesis on the nutrition company.  A number of hedge funders, most notably Daniel Loeb (Third Point) and Carl Icahn, have snapped up big long positions.

Then there's JCPenney, the biggest loser on the S&P this morning.  The retailer is down almost 10% this morning. 

Ackman, who is on the retailer's board, is the biggest shareholder of JCPenney with an 18.11% stake, or 39,075,771 shares, according the latest 13F filing.

JCPenney announced last night that its CEO Ron Johnson, who Ackman championed as a visionary leader, had stepped down effective immediately.

The stock rose on the news, but tumbled after the retailer said its former CEO Mike Ullman would step in as the interim chief. 

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Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management is by far the largest shareholder at JC Penney, giving him a board seat and a lot of influence at the company. 

On Friday, Ackman criticized CEO Ron Johnson, a man he personally recruited from Apple and previously loudly supported, which signaled that Johnson's time was up. He stepped down days later. 

Now, according to Reuters, it looks like Ackman's going to have to take the humiliating step of admitting defeat and exit his years long position in the struggling retailer.

"What we have now is clearly the worst case scenario and Bill will be looking to make as graceful an exit as quickly as possible," a Pershing Square investor told Reuters.

Another investor said that Ron Johnson's failure does "not bode well for the board's receptivity to (Ackman's) future recommendations. He is now a neutered activist." 

And what's the benefit of having a massive stake in a struggling company if you can't push changes? 

Ackman's held onto the investment for a long time despite increasing doubts about Johnson's strategy. But there are a number of reasons that now might be the time for him to exit. 

• The losses are getting huge. The declining stock price has led to around $500 million in paper losses for the hedge fund
• The losses and the high profile nature of his bet have significantly tarnished his reputation
• His handpicked leader failed, so he likely has less influence with JCP's board
• The board picked Mike Ullman, a man Ackman helped push out in favor of Johnson, as interim CEO

The hedge fund could either start selling its shares, or try to join a deal to take the company private. Either way, Ackman will be eager to put this embarrassing chapter in his investment history behind him. 

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People have been speculating that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman was going to bail on his disastrous JCPenney investment.

Ackman, who runs $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, tells Women's Wear Daily that he's sticking around.

From WWD: 

“We’re not going anywhere,” Ackman told WWD in his first public comments on the retailer since Ron Johnson was ousted as chief executive officer Monday. “In fact, we’re going the other direction. We’re digging in.”

Ackman, who is on the retailer's board, is the biggest shareholder of JCPenney with an 18.11% stake, or 39,075,771 shares, according the latest 13F filing.

He's taken a bath on the stock so far. 

The struggling retailer said on Monday night its CEO Ron Johnson, a man Ackman personally recruited from Apple and championed as a visionary leader, had stepped down effective immediately.

JCPenney's stock is down more than 33 percent YTD. 

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JC Penney is headquartered out of Texas, but former CEO Ron Johnson, who was shown the door earlier this week, insisted on working from California.

It's one of the many things critics have blamed for Johnson's demise at JC Penney.

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who has seen his big stake in JC Penney stock collapse in value since Johnson took over as CEO, is speaking at an NYU conference today.

Via Bloomberg, Ackman says that Johnson's lack of physical presence at the Texas headquarters was an issue, because if the CEO isn't very visible, it lowers company morale.

Ackman says the "physical presence" of the new CEO will be critical for JC Penney's turnaround.

The hedge fund manager admitted that Johnson had the "right vision" for the future of JC Penney, but that sometimes hiring someone who had "always succeeded" before can become an issue. (Ackman recruited Johnson to the JC Penney CEO role from Apple, where he built a very successful retail business.)

In other words, according to Ackman, it's hard to find an executive who both has the right vision and the ability to execute that vision.

Going forward, Ackman says JC Penney's Home Store will be the best home section in any department store, and the company will restart coupon circulars in newspapers, a practice that ended under Johnson's tenure as CEO.

READ MORE — JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson Made A Critical Mistake When He Refused To Move To Texas >

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This year, three Columbia Business School students took home $100,000 from Bill Ackman's hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital, for their long thesis on rental car company, Hertz.

They were the winners of the Pershing Square Challenge, an investment thesis contest Ackman has held since 2008.

And it just so happens that two of the winners of Ackman's contest are members of SumZero, an online community for buy-side investors. They were kind enough to share the winning slide deck with Business Insider.

Here's the quick thesis from SumZero:

We recommend investors buy Hertz shares with a 12-month target share price of $36, which represents ~52% upside to the current share price. There are four main points to our investment thesis: 1) The market significantly underestimates the impact of Hertz's recent merger with Dollar Thrifty on car rental pricing; 2) The market underestimates the levers Hertz can pull to counter the negative impact of falling used car prices; 3) Hertz has strong growth opportunities in the U.S. and will realize significant revenue and cost synergies through its acquisition of Dollar Thrifty; and 4) A divestiture of the non-core Equipment Rental segment would unlock substantial value by deleveraging the balance sheet.

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Investors will be gathering at Lincoln Center on Wednesday afternoon for the 18th annual Sohn Investment Conference. 

Some of the world's top hedge fund managers will be sharing their top picks and investment views at the highly-anticipated industry event that benefits the treatment of pediatric cancer and other childhood illnesses.

Speakers at this year's event include, Kyle Bass (Hayman Capital), Jeff Gundlach (DoubleLine), Bill Ackman (Pershing Square), David Einhorn (Greenlight) and Paul Singer (Elliott Management), just to name a few. 

In the meantime, let's review how last year's investment ideas did.  These stock picks were presented on May 18, 2012.  The performance numbers are based on yesterday's stock market close.  

Here's a rundown of last year's picks and performance: 

The winners: 

• Larry Robbins (Glenview Capital Management) was long hospitals and healthcare.  His picks were Tenet Health Corp (up about 156%), Health Management Associates (up about 69%), HCA (up about 68%) and LifePoint Hospitals (up about 37%).  
• Dwight Anderson (Ospraie Management) chose going long Westlake Chemical Corp (The stock's up about 72%). 
• Meryl Witmer (Eagle Capital Partners) recommended going long Gildan (up about 66%) and Viacom (up about 33%).
• Philippe Laffont (Coatue) picked going long Equinix (up about 45%) and Virgin Media (up about 133%). 
• Jeff Gundlach (DoublineLine) recommended shorting Apple (it's down about 13%). 
• John Paulson (Paulson & Co.) recommended Caesars Entertainment Corp (it's up about 15%) and CVR Energy (it's up about 85%)
• John Lykouretzos (Hoplite) recommended buying Starbucks (it's up about 21%).

The losers: 

• Larry Robbins (Glenview Capital Management) He recommended shorting ITC Holdings (The stock's up about 29%). 
• Jeff Gundlach (DoubleLine) recommended shorting Nordstrom (the stock's up about 18%)
• David Einhorn (Greenlight) recommended shorting Martin Marietta Materials (it's up about 56%).
• John Paulson (Paulson & Co.) recommended AngloGold Ashanti (it's down about 44%).
• Bill Ackman (Pershing Square) recommended going long JCPenney (it's down about 35%). 

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Activist investor Bill Ackman, who runs $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, spoke at the Sohn Investment Conference moments ago.

He's gave a bullish case on Procter & Gamble.  

Pershing Square owns almost 30 million shares of P&G. 

He said they think it's one of the "great businesses" in the world.

He said it's vastly under-earning relative to its intrinsic earnings power. 

Last year at Sohn, Ackman pitched going long JCPenney.  The stock has fallen about 35% since then.  

Check here for full conference coverage >

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Investors are gathered at Lincoln Center in Manhattan Wednesday for the highly-anticipated 18th annual Sohn Investment Conference.

Some of the world's top hedge fund managers shared their investment picks and views at the event that benefits the treatment of pediatric cancer and other childhood illnesses.

The speaker lineup included, Kyle Bass (Hayman Capital), Jeff Gundlach (DoubleLine), Bill Ackman (Pershing Square), Jim Chanos (Kynikos), David Einhorn (Greenlight) and Paul Singer (Elliott Management), just to name a few.

Below is our live-blog of the conference.

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Fox Business Network's senior correspondent Charlie Gasparino is getting some dirt on the Bill Ackman versus Dan Loeb battle over Herbalife at the SALT conference in Las Vegas.  

— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) May 9, 2013

— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) May 9, 2013

That's really harsh.

Apparently Loeb didn't name Ackman specifically, but we can all figure out who he was talking about.  Also, Loeb's panel at SALT was reportedly off the record.  

 

— Jeff Cox (@JeffCoxCNBCcom) May 9, 2013

Back in December, Ackman, who runs $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, gave a massive 342-slide presentation slamming Herbalife. Ackman has publicly called the nutrition supplements seller a "pyramid scheme" and has a price target of zero.

Not long after Ackman publicly announced his short, Loeb, who runs Third Point LLC, revealed a big stake in the company. He called Ackman's claims "preposterous."

According to Gasparino's source, Loeb is out of the stock now. 

Shares of Herbalife are currently trading above $45. That's well above the pre-Ackman short levels. 

Since December 18, the trading session before Ackman's short position was revealed, the stock has climbed more than 2.7%.  The stock nose-dived on Ackman's short announcement, but has since rallied back above those pre-short levels. 

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