Ackman Aims at Target's Land

Blackstone Group (BX Quote) served as an influential adviser on the Wendy's and McDonald's campaigns by preparing reports backing Ackman's ideas that were shared with other institutional investors, sources say. Recently, Ackman acknowledged that he hired the investment bank Lazard to help him search for a better buyout deal for Ceridian(CEN Quote), a human resources firm that Ackman is now waging a proxy war against.

"Bill has been fairly aggressive about making sure that he stays in the mix with guys like Lazard, Blackstone and some of the guys in corporate strategy to get credibility for his ideas," says a veteran real estate investor who has worked on deals with Ackman in the past.

"He used some of the big firms to lend some credence to what would otherwise be considered harebrained ideas," the investor says. "Although his track record shows these are not harebrained ideas anymore."

At heart, Ackman is a real estate tycoon, ever since his days as a young late-20-something investor at the Manhattan-based real estate investment shop Gotham Partners, so it only makes sense that the majority of his activist targets center on the ability to unlock value from untapped real estate assets.

That's the case with Target, which owns some 85% of its stores. Ackman pushed for both Wendy's and McDonald's to sell off company-owned stores.