alix: this concerns bill ackman. a special purpose acquisition vehicle that opened on the stock exchange and it is trading at about 2110. $21.10. they have been around forever. last year with the year of the oil spat. a lot of oil guys were getting in. they are popular when it comes to the name attached to it. some of them failed last year. it is all about the person behind that, what happens when you run out of those people? francine: this one is resting on one person, lachman. he is going to go unicorn hunting. if you are a small to medium-sized enterprise, i don't know how you pitch to him, but something we need to keep an eye on. it began trading a short while ago. alix: he will keep you updated on how it is trading. trading right around that ipo price. this is bloomberg. ♪ >> #of the worsening relations between the u.s. and china. the u.s. has ordered the chinese consulate in houston to be closed. according to the state department, it is to protect americans' intellectual property. china calls the move unprecede

we wish this transaction lots of luck and we will be talking as we mentioned with bill ackman in justtle bit in the next hour but thank you, guys, for spending time with us this morning. we will see bill at 8:15 to walk through this transaction, also get his thoughts on the markets. his first since his now famed conversation on cnbc back in march when he said hell was coming melissa? >> also coming up, andrew, united airlines scott kirby joins us in an interview you don't want to miss pfizer and the government struck an agreement for the drugmaker to produce millions of doses for it's covid-19 vaincce. alex azar will join us to discuss that "squawk box" will be right back. and you can even see how your predictions might affect the value of the stocks you're interested in. now this is what i'm talking about. yeah, it'll free up more time for your... uh, true crime shows? british baking competitions. hm. didn't peg you for a crumpet guy. focus on what matters to you with thinkorswim. ♪ >>> good morning it is 8:00 a.m. on the east coast and we got a very big hour ahead of us. first, we'l

i will be speaking with bill ackman.e will discuss the debut of his new blank check company which raised $4 billion in its initial offering. he will weigh in on what kinds of companies he wants to target with the money and other investments. first, let's look at the markets. we are higher. the nasdaq has erased all of its gains. .25%.p 500 is up mark forck at the 70 the you in the. with heating up today expulsion of the envoy from china. i want to point to the fact that we will be talking about in a moment and that is the blank check company that is trading up an ipo today. the expectation was to raise $4 billion and we will be talking more about that in a moment. apple is out with headlines touting a study defending its app store fees. that is the latest out of apple again, talking a study defending its app store fees. apple has had to vehemently defend what it charges developers for developing and taking a cut of their development even though it says it is an open platform. once again, let's get to our guest this hour.

by the way, i should mention that bill ackman bought up tesla.when you look at what tesla is doing it's got the most momentum into a quarter than i have ever seen usually when it has that kind of momentum even if it goes down the buyers come right back they can't get enough of this thing and so i kind of think that it could get hit and then people just go buy it again because it has become a stock that it's a must-own stock and, david, we've seen this before where there are so many things that he can say. people talking about being able to build ten factories ten factories. to meet demand how many factories do ford and gm have to shut to meet demand >> it's extraordinary. and there is no lack of imagination from any of the investors who are weighing into this stock in terms of what this company is going to be able to accomplish, jim. we should point out as well it does look more and more likely it may get added to the s&p 500. >> yes. >> which would also add potential buying as index funds need to add. >> would you offer stock if you were him to

so much so that titans like bill ackman are getting in the mix.hey so hot and i want to bring in spac founder. you were investment banker involved in billions of dollars of these deals. you're laser focused on spaks. explain what they are and why they're so hot? >> so you're right. they are a, way to go public. they're alternative ipo product but you know, the reason they're so hot right now is due to a bunch of different reasons. but in particular, you know, with covid the markets were extremely volatile. you know, back in early to spring. but, further than that, the ipo process. the traditional ipo process inherently much more risky and uncertain. so whereas if you do traditional ipo you don't know how much you can raise or even if you're able to raise any money at all, since we reworked that deal, that ipo never happened. with a spac there is much more certainty. you already know you will be public and for the most part you already know the price because that price is sort of prenegotiated between the company and the spac. so you know, you comb

that's the maximum total value of bill ackman's new special interest company per shalling square holdingsbegin trading today. >>> look at shares of foot locker down today but up on 10% yesterday after saying the deutsche bank retailer is getting a boost from the work and workout from home trend. what she calls the sweatpants and sneaker trade and how back to school is getting flips on its head are you giving yourself new titles during the lockdown >> we need things to do, so just keep adding titles i'm going to add a few sounds good. we get it. we know the work from home we talk tech stocks all the time will it continue to change how we dress i'm only going to show you the top up we'll discuss back to school and will our kids go back. we don't know. we think people will hold off on those back to school purchases that goods for any of the apparel brands in that space. >> we've heard eamon jafrs tweeting out his school district will not be going back >> comfort technology. best buy reported last night a little early they talked about the fact that their on line business was up over 200%. we

when you are talking to ackman, that silver tongue, you are hypnotized yes, bill. it never happened. you ask him about valent how can you acquire a position in alergan he talked about it and you go yes, bill. he's so smooth, you know i think we saw that yesterday. >> silver tongue, it's like yes, bill it is cnbc's fault because we put you on it's our fault >> look, the thing about bill, he's only trying to hit home runs he's either going out of the park or he strikes out >> swings for the fences the dire warning was on cnbc so i guess it was the network's share responsibility for putting him on >> anyway, we'll see thanks guys for the conversation coming back, we'll talk southwest airlines crossing the wires. the numbers and reaction we'll hear from at&t and travelers and reaction on that straight ahead a huge lineup still to come including ceos of tractor supply, auto nation and we'll talk about stacks an all of that venture capitalist who always makes news by just opening his mouth. and treasury secretary steven mnuchin followed by senate minority leader. twitr t

. >>> welcome back bill ackman joined the gang on "squawk box" this morning since march. he wanted to talk about his new world and the rumor that hell is coming andrew, good to have you back. quite a lively conversation this morning. >> yes, kelly, it was. tontine holdin is the largest back to date, and that's why he came on. in total it could reach as high as $7 billion. he explained all this. >> that was a 28-minute segment and that was about a 15-second piece of it, and i want to remind people the message and i encourage everyone to go watch it i said, look, we're at a fork in the road at that point we hadn't shut down one state in the country. it's march 18th, you see the compounding of the growth of the virus. i said, look, one path is we do nothing. if we do nothing, hell is coming but i'm bullish. i'm buying stocks. why? because i believe the president, the government, is going to shut down the country and the answer is we did something in the middle, which is it wasn't what we were recommending, which was a 30-day hard shutdown of the country statewide, every stat

shery: pershing square capital founder and ceo, bill ackman.an get more on the intensifying tensions between the u.s. and china in today's edition of daybreak. bloomberg subscribers can go to dayb on their terminals and it's also available on mobile in the bloomberg anywhere app. next, tesla extends its streak, paving the way for inclusion in the blue-chip s&p 500. we will get details of the carmakers big quarter. this is bloomberg. ♪ shery: we are just a few minutes away from the major market opens across asia. let's turn to sophie kamaruddin for a check on what to watch. sophie. sophie: taking a look across asked ask -- nasdaq, momentum surging this week as we saw tech plays staying hot, pushing the valuation to the highest in over 15 years, and here in asia, the tech rally running hot with the msci aipac i.t. index at a record high underpinned by hardware makers and sk hynix in focus with its earnings beat operating profit tripled to 1.6 billion dollars on chip price and demand recovery, reflective of economic activity picking up and th

bill: i really have no idea. nejra: ackmanabout his newly listed blank check company, a special purpose acquisition company that raised $4 billion yesterday in an ipo. the plan is to create a megamerger with a durable private company. how would it work and what sort of company is he targeting? >> it is called a special purpose acquisition company. he creates sort of a blank check. raised $4this case billion. it goes out to buy a new company in about 1-2 years. once it eyes the company, the company- once it buys a , the target automatically becomes public. he hopes he buys a company that is $10 billion or larger in value. he says only about a third of companies that meet the bill meet his quality threshold. he is looking for a company that is cash flow generative, simple, predictive. some of the names he has floated include spacex, airbnb, palantir. one of the things he is looking for is something that would survive the coronavirus pandemic. he said he does not want something like an energy company that will go bankrupt. he wan

should have completely shut down the country according to billionaire bill ackman. >> if we mishandle this crisis, if we do nothing and sit and let the virus run around the world, we end up in a very dark place. we can't allow that to happen and we shouldn't. we should shut down the country. that was basically my recommendation. i made a pretty bullish case that had we take an hard shutdown, we would have had a better outcome economically. the good news is we're going the get through this. there is going to be a vaccine. there are a number of candidates on the cusp, hopefully. i heard from a trusted colleague on the board with a state-owned of the enterprises in china and he was recently vaccined along with 40,000 other chinese v.i.p.'s. f china -- 40,000 most important high profile since the, they are pretty far along developing a safe and effective vaccine. francine: it was actually going to -- in march we said 1,000 people had become very sick. at the end of that call you said we must learn a lesson from this. i was going to mention that you alled it in many ways. can i ask you a f

earlier this week on "squawk box" ahead of his spac beginning to trade, we talked to bill ackman andy interesting words about the model and what it may mean >> we're committing a billion, billion and a half, possibly more of our own capital. every investor in u.s.spac has a full right to redeem it. if you don't like the deal, you get your money back with interest so, you know, the idea of a lead investor looking throughout the world to find the highest quality business on the best terms, negotiating a transaction, committing capital and only then do investors get presented with the detailed information they have to make a decision and they have a full opt out. the process is several days, it's a scramble. >> stacey, some people who are fans of the spac say effectively it's an indictment of the ipo process. what do you think of that? >> i think that investors and companies looking to become public are looking for choices earlyinvestors are looking for the alternative. it's not going to replace the ipo process. when we talk about ipos on your show and in other places and you see it up

how's that for a blank zmek billionaire hedge fund manager bill ackman has raised money for spa spacs looking for cheery uniforms to buy. >> regardless who our next president is, whether it's president trump and biden, there will be certainty and uncertainty. uncertainty is the enemy of the ipo process. >> he told me the economy won't get back to normal. i asked him if the recovery would be a v shape, a u shape or something else? >> i think it's a bit like the ocean, okay? i think we're going to have waves between the sort of now and what the general trend is to throttle back because of the emergence of the virus. >> he called the initial shutdown in the economy sloppy and that's why the recovery will be sloppy he says. wednesday david solomon said the pac will make it bumpy. the rebound could fizzle out in the months ahead. >> that's an interesting interview, christine. >>> a quick programming note for you. join anderson cooper. we'll have a special guest, bill gates. that begins at 8 eastern tonight only on cnn. we'll be right back. - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful su

bill ackman came out and said these portfolio companies are going to zero, and now they have all beenescued, but they already have their protector, their private equity on umbrella. should private equity have gotten this bailout here? the board affiliation rules that the sba had that were supposed to limit how much portfolio companies could get, counte the 500 employee includes all the different portfolio companies that the private equity has controlling interest over. there were some built-in protections there. the fact that there is private equity behind it does not mean that the company otherwise would have laid off their entire workforce during the shutdown. qualify, andwise that was the decision-making process, i have much less of a problem with that. assuming all the rules were followed. it is better to have those people employed been laid off. in those instances, it doesn't bother me as much, assuming all of the rules were followed. vonnie: a slightly separate ap and its landlord, a potential precedent. gap will not pay its landlord and times square. who should be liable, the l

bill ackman's company has increased the size of its ipo.e now seeking $4 billion for an unspecified acquisition. his filings have singled out large companies as potential targets. the company says it will also be targeting ipo candidates and family-owned businesses. one of the unlucky investors caught up in the waste management debt debacle is the federal reserve. the fed by $3 million of the company bonds last month. they will lose about $120,000. another corporate casualty from the downturn in the u.s. she'll industry. high crush has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. they have agreed with some bondholders to eliminate $450 million in debt. that is related bloomberg business flash. florida breaking the record for daily coronavirus cases in the u.s. dr. arturo casadevall from the johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health will be with us about his thoughts on putting the virus. this is bloomberg. ♪ erg. ♪ vonnie: key therapeutic in the fight against the coronavirus is convalescent plasma. demand for the product from patients who recover

you're seeing really decent brand name people, now bill ackman is pursuing the spac world. you're seeing incredible spaces in the finance world seek out spac's as their next act, new proje project, if you will it's clear if you go out and do these things, in this market which is looking a little frothy, you will see some pretty strong aftermarket performance especially with these brand name companies. >> i can see where the sponsors do well in these kinds of properties do investors do well what's the history tell us and question number two, where a spac which is known as a blank check company, do you know going in or does the spac sponsor know going in what their target company is going to be who they might merge with? who they might invest in or is that somebody that's tbd >> on the first part, there's some very good examples. things they have done well some they have done poorly when you buy into a spac as an ipo, you don't know what it will buy. you might have some prod strokes. it's a risk for companies that sell into spacs and you do have redemption rights. >> there's

i was a doubter, and i said oh, my god, my daughter wants to buy one, my wife wants to buy one bill ackman bought one he actually said i bought a tesla. >> but he bought a tesla they're just waiting for the stock to drop. >> and they're begs for that supply, where is the -- jon najarian, where is the supply? at what level does the supply live >> i can't see, is that peet >> it's p.j., p-jon. >> my take has been the same for a long period of time. gene muenster said a long time ago this is a tech company, not a car company. he's always stated, i think gene just said, this is what it is. now you talk about battery superiority, and the -- you can improve the soft way and get downloads. it's an absolutely amazing ecosystem. that's why it says this was a lot like what apple was a long time ago. >> yes >> how about the -- >> no, the ekecosystem is comin up -- >> a new -- [ laughter ] >> you don't own the stock, though, pete >> i've always said that very rarely i think i owned the stock once, but i've traded many times the options. so you've got to be not in the stock necessarily you understand h

businesses that have not gone public, be advised, bill ackman is out there with $4 billion in his backt willing to put toward in a position -- to what an acquisition. -- toward an acquisition. >> i have with me tyler dixon, who co-leads the investment banking businesses at citigroup. they were the lead left on the deal for this they have been working on. say that the ipo model has broken, because we have had a lot of ipos. with that said, there's clearly thing different the market once of these listings. how does the model need to change? spac as an alternative to ipo. we continue to see vibrant ipo markets for the right situations. we see other situations that are fitted for spac. >> what are those situations? what is the push for change people want? >> i think there's a lot of interest in the equity capital markets. the opportunity for investors to buy ipo's order by spacs is a direct result of them trying to em outside of this market. we are giving them more alternatives today. >> are the facts taking up a lot more of your feed base now than in the past? >> i think they have gotten

coming up on bloomberg tv and radio, bill ackman. if you look the share price, it is still gaining.terview at 6:00 in london, 1:00 in new york. this is bloomberg. ♪ francine: is a busy day in europe and the u.s.. what i am watching will be microsoft. we could be looking at quarterly results after the closing bell that will crush it when it comes to the cloud computing business. a huge tailwind for the company. all analysts bullish on it. a nice run. how much can they deliver is what i am paying attention to. francine: every time you have a big company in the u.s. report, whatever they do will have an impact on european stocks at the open tomorrow. i'll be watching that and also watching some of the earnings in europe tomorrow. we have roche, daimler, unilever, and we were just talking in the break about daimler. there was a report earlier today from manager magazine saying daimler might put up took -- might cut up to 30,000 jobs worldwide. that is quite a lot. they say that is speculation for the moment but certainly there will be an extra layer of interest when they report earnings

jonathan: bill ackman there, pershing square capital founder and ceo.de tom keene and lisa abramowicz, i'm jonathan ferro. i think we are all sick to death of this rising u.s.-china tensions. tensions have been simmering for the best part of two and half years as this administration has confronted the chinese communist party. tom: it has been a very careful ramp up. to your credit, i would mention mr. farrow has been -- mr. ferro has been way out front on this. meredith sumter is the eurasia group head of research strategy and operations. course, a profound knowledge of china. what can you add to the conversation? you see the punditry. it is in the zeitgeist right now. what can you add on this thursday morning about this consulate tit-for-tat? meredith: great to be here with you. this is a remarkably unusual escalation, a closure of a consulate outside of wartime is rare. it is one of a myriad of actions to try to put the bilateral relationship on a fundamentally different course. we heard comments that this is strong, but is it effective? what is key h

much tp bil coming, bill ackman.ar from the former secretary of homeland security on the question of china and u.s. relations. this is bloomberg. ♪ mark: i am mark crumpton. another grim milestone for the coronavirus. officials say there have been more than 15 million confirmed cases around the world. more than 600,000 have died. the three worst hit countries, the u.s., brazil and india account for nearly half of all confirmed cases and more than 40% of fatalities. global cases are growing by more than one million per week. u.s. and china tensions flaring up after the u.s. abruptly ordered the closure of the chinese consulate in houston, texas citing intellectual property concerns. mike pompeo spoke about the issue in copenhagen earlier today. >> we are setting up clear expectations for how the chinese party is going to behave and when they don't, we will take actions to protect the american people. tok: china is vowing retaliate. the european central bank might ask banks to hold off on dividends through the end of t

. >>> after the break, bill ackman explaining his hell is coming prediction back in march here wh hear what he has to say about those comments and what he's doing now. jim, could you uh kick the tires? oh yes. can you change the color inside the car? oh sure. how about blue? that's more cyan but. jump in the back seat, jim. act like my kids. how much longer? -exactly how they sound. it's got massaging seats too, right? oh yeahhhhh. -oh yeahhhhh. visit the mercedes-benz summer event or shop online at participating dealers. get 0% apr financing up to 36 months on select new and certified pre-owned models. the volatility. the ambiguity. this moment calls for more. and northern trust delivers more. with specialized expertise. proven strategies rooted in data and analytics... and insights borne from over 130 years of successfully navigating economic turbulence. giving you new clarity. inspiring confidence. and helping you uncover new paths forward. northern trust. wealth management. find a stock basedtech. on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view

. >> that was bill ackman on "squawk box" today the stock managed to head higher today. he said that long-term he is bullish america, he is long in the markets, he's long on a lot of the reopening trades that he bought close to the march lows, names like hilton, lowe's the home improvement retail, as well as chipotle. he remains in some of these trades and i thought the hedge using a short on high yield was sort of interesting as well. >> yeah, it's been interesting high yield, because the government's professed defense of fallen angels and some high yield and buying the etfs that occupy the space has been interesting. bill's in broad brush strokes have been tactical in this and it seems like he's been on the right side of the trade, buying near the bottom wherever he remains in some of those positions. i think the key is ultimately we are in a credit crisis, whether the government is there to defend ever balance sheet or not, so being cautious and having that as a hedge i think is fair. talking about a couple of those trades, lowe's and chipotle for different reasons ha

on our air in the last week of march and they were somewhat negative >> yes, i do remember that bill ackmanmr. chanos. yeah, that was not great timing. >> no. >> you had -- yeah, there was a lot of -- >> a lot of rich people. >> a lot of negativity in terms of the market. their view on the economy may end up being correct but certainly their view of what would happen to the stock market has not been. >> there is a classic chasm between what the stock market is doing except for the banks this week and what the economy is doing but that's not unusual people don't understand that if you are buying z scale and buying octen, if you are buying palo alto networks and buying fort net, you're to buying that because of something that happened at twitter. if you buy paypal it's because of something that happened with the banks. octo is a company that does identity wasn't that the problem with twitter? bring octa in. >> i just saw that tweet, jim. interesting. we are on track for a third week higher on the s&p. let's get to bob pisani this morning. good morning, bob. >> good morning, carl. happy friday

bill ackman will price his biggest by far, it was you up to $4 billion, i think pershing is putting money in you're 4, maybe you're 5, then you bring in additional funds. yesterday's deal that i was talking about, the multi-plan deal, churchill 3, multi-plan merging into that, hell man and friedman selling i think it was roughly half of their stake and rolling the rest, the latest pe firm to open that company, but they raised another 2 plus billion in additional capital beyond the 1.3 that was being put in by churchill. these deals to get enormous. ackman could be in a position to buy, i don't know, airbnb? you just wonder what it will be. at&t wants to spin off directv the spac world is now becoming a place of liquidity for pe firms in a significant way that's been the case, but even more so. even major companies that are looking for potentially a strategic spin of some kind if they can do it there is the biggest numbers so far, again, the ackman spac will blow them all away, but they keep getting bigger and bigger martin franklin. >> martin franklin. >> who told us a few weeks ago we're

billion dollars to take a unicorn public, pershing square capital management ceo portfolio manager bill ackmanks so much for being here. >> nice to see you. >> congratulations, to you, great performance on you're ipo, tell us about this approach, and whether or not you identified the company would you like to take public as part of this? >> sure, this is a simplest ipo on world a pool of cash in plan to issue stock from this company, are and acquire a business. shareholders earn minority in the business must more efficient low riv process because we can do a transaction almost overnight that enables us to negotiate attractive price for investors that is the basic, in terms of targets want to apply la large company 10, 15, 20, 25-billion-dollar high quality company interestingly today there are more businesses private companies than before big part private equity, very much capital family owned businesses. >> i know you've said you are not looking for energy companies that tr bankrupt will look at businesses that will swaif pandemic do you have a sense what you are looking toward in terms of wh

ackman,p later, bill pershing square founder and chief executive officer, 1:00 p.m. in new york, 6:00 p.m. in london, and this is bloomberg. ♪ ritika: let's get the bloomberg first word news. another sign of worsening relations between the u.s. and china. beijing says the u.s. ordered the closing of the chinese consulate in houston. anna calls that unprecedented escalation. the u.s. says it is because of intellectual property issues. firefighters were sent to the thatlate after it learned papers were being burned in outside containers. president was notably more reserved than in the past, encouraging americans to wear masks and avoid risky behavior. the president promised the virus will be defeated, but he said it will probably get worse before it gets better. republicans putting together a coronavirus relief plan, supporting the idea of more stimulus checks to individuals, but they expressed doubts about president trump's call for a payroll tax cut. the differences between republican senators and the white house threatened to push action on the stimulus into next mo