Nelson Peltz may have suffered a bruising defeat in his proxy battle with Disney Wednesday, but the sting could be eased by a gain the activist has scored on the investment.
Peltz’s Trian Partners has made around $300 million in profit on its 16-month investment, most of it on paper, according to people familiar with the matter.
The firm invested around $800 million in Disney in 2022, buying much of its stake when shares were around $88 apiece. That isn’t far from the recent bottom in the stock, which closed Wednesday at $118.98.
Trian launched its first proxy fight then backed off early last year, selling about a third of its stake and locking in around $60 million of profit.
This time around, Peltz’s friend Ike Perlmutter, the former Marvel Entertainment chairman and one of Disney’s biggest shareholders, entrusted Trian with the voting rights of his Disney shares.
Trian’s arrangement with Perlmutter gives it a cut—around 10%—of the gain on his shares, the people said, which hasn’t been previously reported. Perlmutter got his big stake when he sold Marvel to Disney for $4 billion in 2009. The stake has risen in value by roughly $850 million, adding another $85 million or so to Trian’s haul.
Read more here from The Wall Street Journal.
