(FILES) In this file photo taken on September 9, 2022 fans are reflected in Disney+ logo during the Walt Disney D23 Expo in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP)
NEW YORK — Trian Fund Management, the activist investment firm currently pushing for changes plus a board seat at Walt Disney Co, posted a return of negative 10.6% last year when many hedge funds nursed losses, people familiar with the number said.
Trian’s co-founder, Nelson Peltz, has criticized Disney for bungled succession planning and rising costs at its streaming service and he is pushing for a board seat, arguing he has the operational know-how to help repair the damage.
Disney is denying Peltz a board seat, saying the activist investor “lacked the skills and experience” to help the media and entertainment giant.
FILE PHOTO: Nelson Peltz founding partner of Trian Fund Management LP. speak at the WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach, California October 25, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Trian’s performance is better than the average activist hedge fund which lost an average 17.2% in 2022, according to data from Hedge Fund Research. Activism is a strategy pursued by a relatively small number of firms that essentially bet on a publicly traded company and promise their investors that its share price will rise when their changes are adopted.
A Trian representative declined to comment.
In 2021, activist investment firms earned an average 16% and they were up an average 10% in 2020, HFR data shows.
2022 was an especially rough year in the stock market with the S&P 500 Index down 19.4%.
The standoff between Disney and Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is shaping up to become one of the year’s most hotly contested board room challenges with a prominent activist who has personally served on 11 boards during his career challenging an iconic American company and Bob Iger, a popular CEO who recently returned from retirement to tackle the media company’s problems.