Nelson Peltz eliminates stake in Starbucks

Posted Aug 14th 2008 3:40PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Starbucks (SBUX)

Back in May, Nelson Peltz reported a stake of less than 1% in Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX), and the stock jumped 6% on the news.

I was skeptical: I wrote on BloggingBuyouts that "Most likely Peltz's stake is a non-issue and will lead to no changes. I certainly don't buy that it's a good reason for the stock to add more than half a billion dollars to its market cap in a single day."

Non-issue indeed. Today Peltz reported, in the latest 13-F for his Trian Fund that he has eliminated his stake in Starbucks. Somewhat hypocritically, the market sent shares of Starbucks up more than 3.5% today. Nelson buys? Buy, buy buy! Nelson sells? Buy, buy, buy!

We'll never know why Peltz dumped his stake in Starbucks but, given his track record, you have to think that something spooked him -- he doesn't normally hold stocks for a few months.

Peltz -- whatever his shortcomings -- knows the food service industry pretty well. Given that he just sold Starbucks, I'd think twice before buying.

Tags: Nelson Peltz, NelsonPeltz, SBUX, Starbucks