Billionaire investor Nelson Peltz has acquired 3% of Kraft (NYSE: KFT) and will ask the company to sell Post Cereals and the Maxwell House coffee brand, according to a source.
Mr. Peltz has risen to number 278 on the Forbes list as one of the kings of the leveraged buyout business and, like Carl Icahn, has transformed himself into an activist investor, using proxy battles or the threat of proxy battles, to force companies to unlock value for shareholders.
One of his biggest coups was paying $300 million for Snapple in 1997 and flipping it three years later for five times that. More recently, he purchased a stake in Heinz (NYSE: HNZ), and pushed the company to cut costs, sell assets, and refocus on its core ketchup business.
Peltz's business savvy and large stake in the company make this great news for the company's investors. The stock soared yesterday after CNBC's David Faber reported that Peltz was targeting the company, and Goldman Sachs upped the stock from Sell to Neutral on the news and restructuring speculation.
While it's probably not a good idea to buy a stock just because an investment legend has, you could probably do a lot worse than following Peltz into Kraft. The shares have been stuck in a trading range for years now, and Peltz may just be the catalyst to help the company break out.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-04-2007 @ 2:53PM
rebros said...
Great