Pershing Square Capital Management has disclosed a new Netflix stake, returning to the stock roughly four years after exiting, and argues the streaming platform has effectively won the battle for global subscribers.
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management has disclosed a new stake in Netflix, returning to the streaming company roughly four years after the hedge fund abruptly exited its previous position amid a sharp drop in the stock's value.
The position was revealed in Pershing Square's semiannual report, in which the firm described Netflix as having outlasted competitors in the battle for subscribers and now occupying a commanding position in the global streaming industry.
"We acquired a position in Netflix, a business we briefly owned in 2022 and have followed closely ever since," Pershing Square said in the report.
Netflix shares rose nearly 4% on Thursday following the disclosure.
The return is notable given the circumstances of Ackman's first exit. He built a large Netflix position in early 2022, only to liquidate the entire stake roughly three months later after the company reported its first subscriber loss in more than a decade. At the time, Ackman said shifts in the company's business model made it too difficult to forecast its future with adequate confidence.
The valuation picture has changed considerably since then. Netflix shares have fallen approximately 50% from their June 2025 peak of $134, compressing the stock's forward price-to-earnings multiple from more than 40 times to roughly 21 times, according to Pershing Square's report.
Pershing Square's bullish case rests on three pillars: revenue growth, margin expansion, and share repurchases. The firm expects Netflix revenue to compound at a double-digit annual rate, with content costs rising more slowly than revenue — a dynamic the firm believes will drive earnings growth of close to 20% per year.
Central to that thesis is scale. Pershing Square noted that Netflix has surpassed 325 million subscribers, a figure it described as nearly twice the combined subscriber base of Disney+ and HBO Max. That scale, the firm argued, allows Netflix to spread heavy content spending across a far larger audience than any rival can match.
"We believe the company's current valuation multiple represents a substantial discount for a business with such a strong growth profile and dominant market position," Pershing Square said in the report.
The firm went further, stating that Netflix has "effectively won the streaming wars" — a claim that reflects how dramatically the competitive landscape has shifted since the peak of the subscriber-acquisition arms race, when multiple well-funded platforms were spending aggressively to attract and retain customers.
Pershing Square's re-entry comes as Netflix has also benefited from the maturation of its advertising-supported tier and a crackdown on password sharing, both of which contributed to subscriber and revenue growth over the past two years.
Whether the thesis plays out will depend in part on whether Netflix can sustain its content advantage as rivals retrench and consolidate, and on the trajectory of its share repurchase program — a variable Pershing Square identified as a meaningful driver of per-share earnings growth going forward.
Marc Sabatini is a staff writer at TechEchelon covering enterprise software, cybersecurity, and the regulatory beats that shape both. He focuses on the deal flow and policy decisions that move markets.
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