Market Folly recently revealed that Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund had moved a remarkable 18.3% of its assets into shares of Kraft Foods Inc (NYSE: KFT).
The new disclosure shows Trian owning 12,176,335 shares of KFT as of March 31st, 2011. Adding this data to their original filing, Trian’s KFT position represented 18.3% of their reported assets at the time.
According to Bloomberg, the stake was purchased for approximately $420 million.
Trian Fund Management LP, Peltz’s New York-based activist fund, held 12.2 million Kraft Class A shares as of March 31, according to an amended Form 13F released today by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing shows that Peltz’s application to keep the Kraft stake confidential, submitted to the SEC last month, expired on June 17.
Peltz is an activist investor who takes stakes in companies, particularly those in the food and restaurant businesses, and then frequently pushes for changes designed to boost their share prices. His previous activist investments include Kraft, ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co. and luxury retailer Tiffany & Co.
In November 2007, Kraft agreed to add two board members backed by Peltz after he promised not to seek control of the Northfield, Illinois, company. At the time, Peltz held options to purchase 37.3 million Kraft shares, the equivalent of a 2.4 percent stake. Trian reported in August that its funds had divested all of their remaining Kraft shares during the second quarter of 2010.
Another activist hedge fund that likes KFT is Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square, which released this presentation in early 2010.
Only one Covestor model holds Kraft: Dividend by Analytic Investment Management.
Sources:
“Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Reveals Kraft (KFT) Stake” Market Folly. http://www.marketfolly.com/2011/06/nelson-peltzs-trian-fund-reveals-kraft.html
“Peltz’s Trian Returns to Kraft Foods With $420 Million Stake” Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-28/peltz-s-trian-returns-to-kraft-foods-with-420-million-stake.html
“Bill Ackman & Pershing Square’s Kraft Presentation (KFT)” Market Folly. http://www.marketfolly.com/2010/02/bill-ackman-pershing-squares-kraft.html
