Netflix Stock Gets Lift After Hedge-Fund Manager Bill Ackman Buys More Than $1 Billion Worth of Shares

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorNetflix shares — after dropping 30% over the past week — rose more than 4% in after-hours trading Wednesday after Bill Ackman, head of the Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund, disclosed that his firm had bought more than $1 billion worth of the streamer’s stock.Starting last Friday (Jan.

21) and over the next several days, Pershing acquired more than 3.1 million shares of Netflix, “making us a top-20 shareholder in the company,” Ackman wrote in a letter to the hedge fund’s investors.Click here to sign up for Variety’s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial news, and more.The hedge fund scooped up the stake in Netflix after the stock took a nosedive following its fourth-quarter 2021 earnings report, in which it forecast a much smaller-than-expected subscriber gain in the first quarter of 2022 — fueling investor fears that the category leader was losing steam. “The opportunity to acquire Netflix at an attractive valuation emerged when investors reacted negatively to the recent quarter’s subscriber growth and management’s short-term guidance,” Ackman wrote in the letter.“We have greatly admired Netflix both as consumers and as investors, but have never previously owned a stake in the company,” Ackman continued. “Netflix is a primary beneficiary of the growth in streaming and the decline in linear TV driven by its superior customer experience, a vast and diverse amount of superb, constantly refreshed content, global improvements in bandwidth, and the proliferation and continues improvement and convenience of devices on which one can watch.”Pershing began analyzing Netflix in connection with its investment in Universal Music Group, according to Ackman.