Hawkshaw – Bill Ackman Is Wrong On Chipotle

Former hedge fund rock star Bill Ackman has attracted plenty of attention for diving headfirst into Chipotle Mexican Grill. Last year Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital acquired 10% of the troubled fast-casual Mexican-food restaurant operator believing it is possible to unlock value from the shares by improved operating performance.

After a spate of bad publicity from highly publicized foodborne illness incidents, shares in Chipotle plunged from a high of $760 to well below $400 last year. Such a decline is bound to attract contrarian value investors. But as Kian Ghazi of Hawkshaw LLC argues in the March issue of Value Investor Insight, the damage that has already been dealt to the firm’s reputation could be enough to send the stock...