Ackman Loads Up on Fee Collectors

Pershing Square, led by Bill Ackman, has made three significant investments in Visa, Mastercard, and S&P Global. Each of these companies collects fees on transactions that they don't initiate or take risk on.

The three positions are valued at around $3.3 billion, making them a substantial part of Pershing Square's portfolio. Visa processed 71.7 billion individual transactions in its fiscal third quarter, with payments volume growing 10% year over year.

S&P Global runs a similar model on different rails, collecting fees for credit ratings and licensing fees from index fund managers. The company's indices revenue rose 20% during the second quarter, including 22% growth in fees tied to assets sitting in funds that track its indexes.