By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
BOSTON (Reuters) – Trian Fund Management, the activist investment firm run by Nelson Peltz, said in a regulatory filing on Monday it has slashed holdings in consumer staples giants Procter & Gamble Co and Mondelez International Inc by more than 90% each.
Trian owned 237,384 shares of P&G, which makes Tide detergent and Crest toothpaste, at the end of the fourth quarter after having sold 5 million shares. It owned 450,184 shares of Mondelez, the maker of Oreo cookies and Milka chocolate, on Dec. 31, after having sold 7.5 million shares, the filing showed.
The filing signals that Trian’s engagement with both companies may be nearing an end.
So called 13-F filings require fund managers to detail the amount of stock they held in U.S. companies at the end of the previous quarter. While the filings are backward-looking, they are closely watched by investors for signs of investment trends.
Five years ago Trian asked for a board seat at P&G, beginning a fight that turned into the most expensive proxy fight to date at that time. Peltz was invited to join the board by P&G’s chief executive in 2018 and the two men soon said publicly they were working collaboratively to improve operations and the company’s stock price rose.
Peltz retired from the P&G board late last year.
Trian began buying into Mondelez, once part of Kraft Foods, in 2013 and Peter May, one of Trian’s founding partners, is a board member. He took the seat that Peltz vacated.
Trian is known for proposing operational fixes and sticking with its investments longer than many other hedge funds.
Last month, people familiar with Trian’s investments said the firm had built a stake in packaged food and consumer goods giant Unilever Plc. Trian has not commented on the matter.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Rhode Island; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
