Let’s now see what one of the most famous hedge fund activists in the world had to say about Mondelez International Inc. (NASDAQ:MDLZ). Although activist Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management tumbled in 2015, he continues to be one of the best hedge fund managers in the world, so it does pay off to listen to his words. Mondelez International Inc. (NASDAQ:MDLZ) represents Mr. Ackman’s third-largest position as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2015, comprising 43.37 million shares. In a third-quarter letter to investors, highly-scrutinized Bill Ackman discussed his firm’s investment in Mondolez, saying that snack giant is “a classic Pershing Square investment in a high quality, simple, predictable business with attractive long-term growth, and multiple opportunities to create shareholder value”. The letter also said the following:
“We maintain our belief that the opportunity for productivity improvement and margin expansion at Mondelez is vast – the largest in the large cap consumer packaged goods sector. The company’s operating profit margins were 12% last year, and are estimated to be roughly 14% in 2015, well below what they can or should be given the company’s attractive categories, dominant brands, and enormous scale.”
Pershing Square also discussed its investment in Mondelez International Inc. (NASDAQ:MDLZ) in a letter to investors for the fourth quarter of 2015. Although the activist hedge fund cut its stake in the snack company during the fourth quarter, the investment firm continues to be “highly optimistic about the potential for Mondelez as it improves its operational efficiency and continues to grow while remaining an attractive merger candidate, and therefore, we expect to remain a substantial, long-term holder.”
Hedge fund activity in Mondelez International Inc (NASDAQ:MDLZ)
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 57 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a decline of 17% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners has the number one position in Mondelez International Inc (NASDAQ:MDLZ), worth close to $2.15 billion, amounting to 17.5% of its total 13F portfolio. On Trian Partners’s heels is Pershing Square, led by Bill Ackman, holding a $1.94 billion position; the fund has 15.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. The remaining members of the smart money that hold long positions contain Boykin Curry’s Eagle Capital Management, Lei Zhang’s Hillhouse Capital Management and First Eagle Investment Management.
Because Mondelez International Inc (NASDAQ:MDLZ) has experienced a declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there were a few hedge funds who sold off their entire stakes in the fourth quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management dropped the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, which comprised 3.48 million shares. This move is intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 12 funds during the last three months of 2015.
The next page of this article reveals the hedge fund activity in other companies that have market values similar to MDLZ.
