it's also been a bill year for bill ackman. his fund up 67% thanks to a big bet he made to hedge against the pandemic's impact. mi uonpothose stories and more congp "wer lunch" after this quick break i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security? all our techs are pros. they know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing. with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't. let's take care of business. at&t. sometimes, you want speedy but reliable. state-of-the-art but dependable. in other words, you want a hybrid. so do telcos. that's why they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach with watson ai helps them roll out new innovations anywhere without losing speed. from telco to transportation, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. g

while ackman is -- his fund is up about 80% this year, all in ackman is now managing $17 billion. now it is worth noting that this year's returns follow last year's gains of nearly 60%, putting the firm well above its high water mark to collect incentive fees those gains follow several years of negative returns, guys. >> wow yeah you could have played him right, man, you would have nailed it. leslie, thank you. two years in a row, strong performance for bill ackman. a look at futures as we head to break. opening bell about 8 or so minutes away you see the bottom of the screen, 8:32 in fact and there we are, looking for a higher open. stay with us on "squawk on the street." we love the new apartment. the natural light is amazing. hardwood floors. there is a bit of a clogging problem. (clog dancing) at least geico makes it easy to bundle our renters and car insurance. yeah, helping us save us even more... for bundling made easy, go to geico.com >>> watch cat today. caterpillar. its top idea of 2021 and raising its price target on stock up to $2.20. ilahwkn e re" stet stl ead. so sta

. >> that is right bill ackman has had one of the best performing hedge funds of 2020 and his best yearver. those gains were driven by late february and early march hedge in the index markets over concerns about the pandemic. subsequently ackman unwound those for a $2.6 billion profit which he plowed back into equities his portfolio includes some companies impacted by the shutdowns but chipotle, starbucks, and lowe's have outperformed during this year. he also raised a record $4 billion spac to find a future acquisition. it's worth noting that this year's returns follow last year's gains of 60% putting the firm well above its high-water mark to collect incentive fees, although some losses in the years preceding that, scott. >> but on the comeback trail and then some. leslie, thank you. that's leslie picker. >>> joe, you want to weigh in on this comeback that we've witnessed from bill ackman >> sure, i would appreciate that and congratulations to bill on what has been a very solid year for his performance. but overall human hedge funds for the very first time in many years are outperform

. >>> from buying a lunch with bill ackman to making his company public, andrew wilkin n wilkinson, welcome. congratulations on your first day, the first company you've taken public. >> it feels pretty amazing. >> you count bill ackman as an investor. you also have the family office of howard marks, which is run by his son. how did all that come about? >> it was pretty serendipitous. i'd been running my business for about 15 years, i've been doing it quietly from an island in canada, never had any outside investors. about two years ago i saw a lunch up for auction with bill and i had actually invested in his public holding company and i figured, hey, i'll go for lunch, it will be interesting no matter what happens and if i like him, maybe i'll buy more stock, and if i think he's a jerk, maybe i'll sell out. i really liked him. we hit it off and spent six hours together and at the end of the lunch he said, i don't know if you know but i have a family office and you you hugely invest in tech and i would love to invest in you if there's ever an opportunity. about six months later we saw an opp

leslie picker is with us >> good morning, becky bill ackman is going to return 7-0 percent. gains were different from his style. they were driven by late february, early march hedge in the concerns about the pandemic. subsequently ackman unwound the hedges for a $2.6 billion profit which has plowed into his portfolio companies and reinstating holdings on the equity side. these include some that have been depressed by the shutdown, including restaurant brands and hilton others like chipotle, starbucks, adu le ent technologies and lowe's then ackman raised this year's largest spac, $4 billion in hand now to fund a future acquisition including ackman is now managing $17 billion. it's worth noting that this year's returns follow last year's gains of nearly 60% putting the firm above its high water mark to collect incentive fees those gains follow several years of negative returns, guys. >> that's a lot of money a lot of money. >> it is >> and big spac. speaking of which, leslie, we have a really interesting spac coming up right now. becky, guess what the plastics seed stock is w

i may be incorrect in terms of the ackman spac.> the people who watch "mad money," could you please on the lightning round stop calling me and asking me all the spacs. a lot of times it is a guy with a check, a blank check >> right. >> i wouldn't even leave my electrician a blank check. and i like him, he's pretty good what i like him he's pretty good >> you like your electrician >> yeah. psth, that was because it was a different as i said, a different mold it was priced at a higher number than the typical spac i want to correct that thank you. >> no problem. >> carl, what is going on that there can be so much greatness and we're sitting here and looking at these numbers right now, everyone is looking at the numbers all over the world, they have no one has crested other than the chinese chinese yesterday, 18 cases, carl 18 cases, 1.2 billion and we wonder why they're doing better than we are. 18 cases you can go anywhere, there is probably more -- how many -- how many kohl's did they get yesterday? you wonder why -- all the compani

most largely the bill ackman's back. he said he was looking for a mature unicorn.any more mature unicorns are out there in at least your field? >> we think there's enough to fill the back dance card at least at that end of the market. we track 350 to 100-plus companies that could be targeted or thought of as unicorns. so as we look into the large-scale spacks and those that are targeting companies that are at that end of the market, we think there's going to be plenty of interest. but we also think this is also -- [indiscernible] -- sort of the traditional spacks. those that are 250 to 500 million in value or up to $1 billion in terms of the capital that they've raised. we think it's going to be very active in tech in the unicorn and the early stage unicorn phase. for 2021. vonnie: speaking of that. if you had a company that was maybe around that kind of a valuation, would you be pushing them towards the south banks back if south bank showed an interest? if the spack sponsors showed an interest? or is that something you'd shy away from? would you rather go direct n

alix: and for that, you may need stimulus, which is a perfect lead into our next step -- our next ackman. mike wilson of morgan stanley will be sticking with us because we want to dig into the stimulus hopes. will something actually get done to brick the deadlock? we'll talk with terry haines over at pangaea. this is bloomberg. ♪ alix: live from new york, i'm alix steel, with guy johnson in london. this is "bloomberg markets." time is running out for congress to move on a stiglitz package. yesterday, some -- on a stimulus package. yesterday, some new proposals. terry haines of pangaea policy joins us now. you have mitch mcconnell speaking on the senate floor, saying that something needs to get bond -- something needs to get done. when will it get done? that: the what is negotiations over stimulus are dovetailing with the annual spending fights. what you end up with is about a three month kick the can spending that will allow the new congress and the new president to haggle over this in the late winter and early spring, and , -- andatch to that then attached to that will be something also

clearly companies investors have interest it's about the quality of teams that are sponsoring spac bill ackmanuerrilgril gorilla that people are talking about. it's showing a sharp commitment for 2021 future growth >> what are the hot ipos coming that may happen in the next few months >> we think some of the biggest clue stripe, mobile payments company. that's is a 36 billion private valuation but targeting 70-plus billion. waymo, instacart grocery and delivery got 17 billion and we think elon musk spacex privately has valuation of 46 million. >> kathleen and paul will go deeper into the market on etf edge @cnbc.com >> joining us next, a member of cnbc's wlneless counsel. looking forward to that. back within just 30 seconds. >>> joe, you bought docusign >> earnings were released. we had a very thoughtful conversation last week and jim cramer was included in that as well but the earnings for docusign came out. they were clearly very strong but you have to pay attention to price and price is not working consistent with those earnings so risk management, scott, becomes your focus you need to plac

they are usually sold to ten, ackman sold his at 20.hang in there until they announce their deal and then they try to come on here and tell us all about why it is great. and then they try to attract people your point, i guess, is not necessarily as much maybe, you can be attracted to who sponsors the spac and say, this person has a strong track record or expertise in a particular area, i think they're going to be able to find the right deal or develop the right relationships or based on the relationships they already have. and add a lot of value, so your issue, though, is what, where once they announce the deal, people still don't understand what they're doing >> a lot of times they merge with companies and it is a reverse merger or it is a company that we really can't figure out what it is actually doing with the money and sometimes companies become public that would have gotten much more scrutiny here is a good one this is what i want. i want something like utz. you know utz, right? >> yeah. >> that is a company that came public via o

. >> bill ackman was reportedly one of the spacs that approached airbnb they turned them down, and herewith the ipo today. i asked chesky about airbnb's path to profitability. >> we were ebita positive in 2018, on an adjusted ebita basis. i think that the way to think about it is we think this model has really good long-term inherent margins built into it now, the thing about airbnb is we had to do hard work to get the company going. we had to design the system of trust, build our own payment system, invest in trust and safety to be able to make sure that two strangers could live together, to be able to localize our product in 200 countries and regions around the world we had to invest in building a brand, known as a noun and a verb around the world. we had to built a lot of difficult things, made a lot of investments. i think as you see in 2019 we are over an investment hump of sorts and i'm feeling good about what the nature of the profitability for this country is on an ongoing basis at the end of the day, this is a primarily capital light business it's a community communities are ex