Seth Klarman’s hedge fund Baupost buys Into Ackman’s Pershing Square, adds to tech bets

Baupost (Seth Klarman) disclosed a small ~$13M stake in Pershing Square Inc. and added materially to CME Group, worth nearly $137M as of June 30. The firm also increased its largest tech bets—Amazon shares up ~20% to 3.74M (≈$892M) and Alphabet up ~16% to ~1.37M (≈$490M). Offsetting this, Baupost trimmed Restaurant Brands International by >16% to ~6.75M shares (≈$490M), signaling selective rotation within its public equity portfolio.

Analysis

The important signal here is not that a famous value fund bought tech; it is that the buys are concentrated in businesses with durable free-cash-flow generation and low refinancing risk, which tells you where sophisticated capital still sees asymmetry. That is mildly supportive for AMZN and GOOGL multiple durability over the next 6-18 months, but the near-term stock reaction should be limited because 13F data is stale and non-causal. In other words, this is more of a confirmation that the “quality at a reasonable price” trade still has sponsorship than a fresh catalyst.

CME is the cleanest fundamental beneficiary if rates, FX, and equity vol remain elevated: exchange economics scale with activity, and the cost base is mostly fixed, so incremental volume drops through at high margins. The second-order loser is not another exchange so much as banks and OTC dealers that lose spread capture when more risk migrates to listed venues. For AMZN and GOOGL, the positioning suggests investors with a margin-of-safety lens still prefer their cash-generation machines over narrower AI beneficiaries; if that view broadens, it can support valuation floors even without obvious earnings upside revisions.

The cut to QSR is more interesting than the small PS stake: it hints at skepticism around low-growth consumer franchises facing margin pressure, traffic elasticity, and limited pricing power. The contrarian risk is that the market may overread a quarterly filing as a macro signal; if the next two earnings cycles show resilient ad/retail/cloud demand and stable transaction volumes, the “value is fleeing tech” narrative will look wrong. Falsifier for the bullish read on CME is a sharp vol/volume collapse or a rate vol regime reset; for AMZN/GOOGL it is slower-than-expected margin expansion from cloud/ads or renewed regulatory pressure.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long CME as a 3-6 month relative-value expression versus low-vol financials (e.g., short BK or neutralize with XLF): thesis is that elevated macro uncertainty keeps listed derivatives volume above trend; stop if CME monthly average daily volume rolls over for two straight quarters.
• Add selectively to AMZN on weakness over the next 1-2 weeks rather than chasing; risk/reward favors using any post-13F pullback to build a position ahead of holiday demand and AWS margin inflection. Falsify if retail margin or AWS growth decelerates meaningfully next print.
• Long GOOGL / short QSR pair over 1-3 months: same “quality balance sheet, resilient cash flow” factor on the long side versus a leveraged consumer cash-flow story with less pricing power on the short side. Cover if QSR comp trends reaccelerate or GOOGL faces a new regulatory shock.
• Treat PS/PSHZF as a non-signal for now; the stake is too small to trade off. Watch for follow-on buying or active capital deployment, which would be the real catalyst for a position in the listed vehicle.
• If you want a cleaner expression of the same theme, buy QQQ or MGK on a pullback and fund it with a short in a consumer-franchise basket; the filing reads as confirmation that large-cap durability remains the higher-conviction factor, not a broad anti-tech call.