According to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Nelson Pelt’s Trian Partners made around $300 million in profit on its 16-month investment in Walt Disney (NYSE:).
The activist investor was defeated in his board battle with Disney, but Peltz’s firm made a significant gain on its investment, the WSJ said, citing people familiar with the matter.
In 2022, Trian Partners was said to have invested around $800 million in Disney, buying most of its position when the company’s stock was around $88 per share.
The publication states that Trian backed off from its first proxy fight early last year, selling around a third of its position and locking in about $60 million of profit.
However, they added that this time, a friend of Peltz’s and one of Disney’s biggest shareholders, Ike Perlmutter, entrusted Trian with the voting rights of his Disney shares.
The WSJ explained that Trian’s agreement with Perlmutter gave the firm a cut of around 10% of the gain on his shares, a figure not previously reported.
The stake rose by around $850 million in value, adding a further $85 million to Trian’s profit. The publication adds that after deducting the $25 million Trian expected to pay to wage the campaign, its profit to date comes out to about $300 million, representing a roughly 40% return on the investment over the period Trian has owned the shares.
