UPDATE 1-Ackman's Pershing Square Holdings fund down 19.9 pct in 2016

(Adds details on performance, portfolio holdings)
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
BOSTON, March 1 (Reuters) - Billionaire investor William
Ackman's Pershing Square (NYSE:SQ) Holdings has lost 19.9 percent in the
first two months of 2016 as two of the hedge fund's most
prominent bets moved in the wrong direction in recent days, a
person familiar with the returns said on Tuesday.
Ackman, one of the industry's most widely watched investors,
told clients that his Pershing Square Holdings dropped 9.8
percent in February. Losses for the first eight weeks of 2016
are now nearly as high as they were for all of 2015, when the
fund lost 20.5 percent.
While the fund had a string of strong days earlier in the
month, it suffered blows in recent days.
Late last week Herbalife (NYSE:HLF) Ltd. HLF.N , in which Ackman has a
$1 billion bet that its shares will fall, said in a filing that
it was discussing a "potential resolution" of an investigation
by the Federal Trade Commission. That sent the shares surging
about 27 percent on Friday.
Ackman first accused Herbalife of running a pyramid scheme
in 2012, an allegation the company denies, and he has asked
regulators, including the FTC, to investigate. He has said that
he would make money on the bet if the share price drops to the
mid-$30 range. It closed at $56.41 on Tuesday, having climbed
some 17 percent in the last month.
The second blow came when Valeant Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:VRX) VRX.TO ,
VRX.N in which Ackman has been invested for roughly a year,
disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission is
investigating the company, sending its shares tumbling on
Monday. The company also canceled a planned earnings call and
said its chief executive, Michael Pearson (LON:PSON), who had been on an
extended medical leave, had returned over the weekend.
The stock price has fallen 22.9 percent in the last five
days.
The moves were particularly painful because Ackman runs a
very concentrated portfolio and invests in only a few companies
at a time.
Most fund managers are still tallying their returns and some
have indicated they benefited as the stock market rebounded last
month.