Who is Nelson Peltz?

Nelson Peltz is a successful American businessman and an activist investor born in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York. He is a co-founder of Trian Fund Management's investment firm alongside Edward Garden and Peter May.

Today, the firm holds $8.5 billion in assets under management. Peltz is also the former director of H.J Heinz Company and a former CEO of Triangle Industries.

Education of Nelson Peltz

Nelson Peltz started his schooling at Horace Mann School in the Bronx and went to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for the undergraduate program in 160. Here he joined the fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta but soon dropped out in 1963 without completing the degree.

Career and Business

After dropping out of the Wharton School, Peltz started driving delivery trucks for his father's wholesale frozen food distribution business – A. Peltz and Son. Peltz, along with his older brother, Robert B. Peltz, grew the $2.5 million private enterprises into a public company with a revenue of $140 million within a decade.

Around the 1980s, Nelson Peltz started looking for acquisitions. He leveraged the acquisitional value of high yield Bonds (junk bonds) sold by Michael Milken during this time. He began with leveraged buyouts financed with these high yield bonds to turn his modest Income into a multi-million-dollar fortune.

In April 1983, Peltz bought a stake in Triangle Industries, a vending machine and wire company valued at an estimated $80 million. By 1998, Triangle Industries amassed an approximately $4 billion valuation and was sold to Pechiney SA – a state-owned French conglomerate. After the sale was publicly announced, Triangle's stock swooped from $10.37 a share to $46.25.

In 1985, Peltz, using the junk bonds, bought the National Can Corporation in exchange for $460 million and the packaging division of American Can Company in exchange for $570 million. Later, both the companies were merged to form the world's largest packaging company – American National Can Corp.

Peltz co-founded Trian Fund management in 2005 and bought stakes in companies like BNY Mellon, Wendy's, Heinz, Domino's Pizza, Ingersoll Rand, Tiffany and Co., Kraft Foods and Family Dollar. As of 2019, Trian has over $10 billion of Assets Under Management (AUM).

Wealth and Philanthropy

In February 2014, Forbes magazine listed Nelson Peltz under the 25 highest-earning hedge fund managers of 2013. Peltz ranked 16th with total Earnings of $430 million. According to Forbes, Peltz holds a Net worth of $1.51 billion as of 2017, making him the 432nd richest man in the USA. In 2005, Peltz was one of the contributors to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush with a maximum input of $250,000. He's also an active contributor to Jewish causes.

Nelson Peltz Legacy

As of September 2020, Peltz has a net worth of over $1.7 billion. According to Forbes, the hedge fund and Trian Partners Master Funds returned 11% net fees in 2016. Nelson Peltz is married to Claudia Heffner, a former fashion model. Along with his wife, he founded the Nelson and Claudia Peltz Family Foundation in 2003.