Trian to Make $70 Million in Nine Months on Legg Mason

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Nelson Peltz stands to make about $266 million over the past decade on two separate investments in Legg Mason Inc., after the asset manager agreed to be acquired Tuesday.

The takeover by Franklin Resources Inc. means Peltz’s Trian Fund Management has turned a $70.3 million profit in the nine months since it disclosed a new stake in the Baltimore-based money manager, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In all, Trian stands to make a healthy 55% return on its $128 million investment this time around, the data show.

Those profits add to the roughly $196 million in gains Trian made off of its last investment in Legg Mason between 2009 and 2016. For five of those years, Peltz was on the board, and the investment yielded a 61% return before Trian sold its remaining stake in Legg Mason to the Singapore-based Shanda Group in April 2016.

Trian disclosed the new position in Legg Mason in May. The company expanded its board at the time to make room for Peltz to return as a director along with Ed Garden, a fellow Trian co-founder.

The investment firm said at the time that the three most important things for Legg Mason to focus on would be to reduce costs, drive revenue growth both organically and through acquisitions, and to improve profitability. Nine months later, a $50-a-share takeout price worth about $4.5 billion proved to be an even more important driver of value.

Trian, which was founded in 2005, shuns the term activist investor, preferring to be known as a “highly engaged shareowner.” It has pushed for changes at several high-profile companies in recent years, including Procter & Gamble Co., General Electric Co., and Ferguson Plc.

To contact the reporters on this story: Scott Deveau in New York at sdeveau2@bloomberg.net;Brandon Kochkodin in New York at bkochkodin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Liana Baker at lbaker75@bloomberg.net, Matthew Monks

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