By Yadarisa Shabong
(Reuters) – Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management has sold about 3.8 million shares in British consumer goods giant Unilever for nearly 181 million pounds ($232 million), a filing showed on Wednesday.
The fund, the No. 5 shareholder, had previously held a 1.47% stake, or 36.6 million shares, in the owner of Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise worth about $1.8 billion, according to LSEG data.
It now holds about 32.6 million shares after the stake sale, a Trian spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Peltz’s hedge fund started building stake in Unilever in early 2022 and the activist investor joined the company’s board in May that year.
As of Tuesday’s close, Unilever shares have gained nearly 30% since Trian’s stake was first made public in January 2022.
They have climbed more than 23% so far this year and had rallied last month after the company beat first-half profit expectations.
Trian had sold small stakes on Friday, Monday and Tuesday, according to the filing, for “portfolio management purposes”.
Peltz had endorsed the appointment of Hein Schumacher as CEO in 2023. In his first year at the helm, Schumacher has overseen plans to spin off the company’s ice cream business, lay off as many as 7,500 staff, and focus on 30 key brands to reverse years of underperformance.
Unilever shares were down marginally at 47.10 pounds at 1332 GMT.
Peltz looks forward to continuing to work with the company’s board and management team, the spokesperson said.
($1 = 0.7785 pounds)
(Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru and Agata Rybska in Gdansk; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
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