PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP), Mondelez International Inc (MDLZ): Activist Billionaire Nelson Peltz Loves This ‘Fab Five’

Pepsi

Trian is also heavily invested is PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP). Peltz and his colleagues started buying shares of the soft drink producer in the final quarter of 2012. As of the start of 2013, the fund reportedly owned 3.9 million shares and since then,they’ve upped their stake by more than 200%. As of its most recent 13F,Trian holdsover 12 million PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) shares, worth approximately $952 million. Since the start of the year, PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP)’s stock price has risen by 23%;the company posted earnings of $0.77 per share and revenue of $12.6 billion during its latest quarter, surpassing Wall Street expectations. Analysts expect even stronger performance in the second quarter of 2013, so we’ll be watching closely.

Final thoughts

When Nelson Peltz’s stakes in consumer giants PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) and Mondelez International Inc (NASDAQ:MDLZ) were first disclosed earlier this year, many pundits believed that the activist investor would push for a merger by spinning off PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP)’s Frito-Lay. It now appears that this was more the dream of a few wild typing financial journalists. Both companies face significant obstacles to a merger, not to mention that fact that Peltz’s stakes are still not large enough to cause significant changes.

Apart, both companies offer good value, and are bets on a recovering economy—a reasonable theme to drive these two forward. Similarly, the decisions to sell Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) and State Street seem to be driven by a lack of value, and unless there’s significant outperformance on the revenue/earnings front, it’s tough to see any massive appreciation from this luxury retailer and financial holding company any time soon.

Still, it’s also important to track Peltz and Trian’s remaining 13F holdings; check our fund-by-fund database on Insider Monkey for more info.

Disclosure: none