US investor buys 6% stake in Rightmove as takeover rumours fly
It has been claimed that Rightmove may face another takeover challenge in the next few weeks following similar moves late last year.
A report by The Sunday Times reveals that activist investor Bill Ackman (main image) has bought stock in Rightmove worth hundreds of millions of pounds via his huge US hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management.
It is claimed by investor insiders that Ackman believes Rightmove’s share price is significantly undervalued following its recent shift towards AI tools and the ensuing drop in its share price.
That hit a high of £8.18 a share during the summer of 2025 but began to slide after the threat posed by AI-enabled search engines, such as ChatGPT, to its dominance of the online house-hunting market became clear.
Its response to this in last November’s trading results didn’t help – and the firm’s share price bottomed out at £4.10 a share in May this year.
New position
Ackman believes this value gap represents a chance to make significant profits and is reported to now own 6% of Rightmove’s stock, a position from which he will either make considerable profits if Rightmove’s share price eventually recovers, or launch a takeover.
He will need nerves of steel – the share price has begun to recover as the AI threat to Rightmove has failed to materialise in the short term and it now sits at around £5 per share.
The Sunday Times reports that Ackman’s mentor, and fellow hedge figure Sachem Head has been making it known to the London market that he believes an AI-prompted share sell-off of Rightmove stock has been overcooked and is encouraging the portal to take on debt to fund share buybacks.
One interpretation of this, anonymous investors have claimed, is that Head thinks Rightmove is undervalued and ripe for a takeover.
The Neg has approached Rightmove for comment.
Main pic credit: WikiCommons/Rightmove/Flickr
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The post US investor buys 6% stake in Rightmove as takeover rumours fly appeared first on The Negotiator.
Author: Gemma
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