Carl Icahn appears to have joined Nelson Peltz as a shareholder in Kraft (KFT). Peltz is going to meet with Kraft management this week to get the company "to focus on its grocery and frozen-foods brands, which include cheese and pizza, sell its Post cereals and Maxwell House coffee businesses and use the proceeds from those sales to buy back shares."
If Icahn and Peltz decide to team up, it might get a bit sauna-like at Kraft headquarters. Peltz and Icahn are almost all that is left of the raider culture from 25 years ago. But, they are past masters of their art. Icahn has been particularly busy lately with Lear (LEA), Blockbuster (BBI), and Motorola (MOT). Even if he does not always get his "seat on the board", he often forces change from the outside,
Year-to-date, Kraft’s stock is flat, but that is only because the raiders have jumped in and sent up the shares recently. The company’s market performance is not going to be a terribly good defense.
It will have to come up with something else to encourage shareholders to be patient.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not hold shares in companies that he writes about.
Kraft
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