As Wendy’s largest shareholder, billion-dollar hedge fund Trian Partners plays an outsized role in the fast-food giant’s decision-making. Trian CEO Nelson Peltz is Wendy’s Board Chairman and head of the company’s Social Responsibility Board Committee, while leading Trian executives Peter May and Matthew Peltz also occupy key decision-making roles in Wendy’s inner circles. Trian Partners’ influence over the fast-food giant is unequaled, but they are hardly alone among Wall Street players that can make their voice heard — loud and clear — inside Wendy’s.
Well known investment giants BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo among top shareholders in Wendy’s universe… and key stops on the Follow the Money March!...
Willie Sutton, the famous criminal of the early 20th century, was once asked why he chose to rob banks.
His response? “Because that’s where the money is.”
While the motivation behind next month’s major mobilization in New York may not be the same as Willie Sutton’s, the rationale is. We are marching on Trian Partners, and on several other key banks and investment funds behind the fast-food company Wendy’s, precisely because that’s where the money is.
And, when it comes to decision-making at the billion dollar hamburger giant, it seems — more than any other company in the fast-food firmament — that’s where the power is, too.
So today, we wanted to introduce you to some of the key actors in Wendy’s world, the massive investment firms and Wall Street players whose money gives them the loudest voices in the room when the big decisions are made — like when it’s time to decide whether or not to join the universally-acclaimed gold standard for social responsibility in agriculture today, the Fair Food Program. We begin with Trian, the loudest of all the voices, but we don’t stop there, as we “Follow the Money” wherever it leads.
Trian Partners
Only Nelson Peltz and his partners at Trian truly know the full extent of the hedge fund billionaire’s influence over the hamburger giant, the final fast-food holdout from the Fair Food Program. But one thing is clear: The outsized role of the “activist investor” Peltz and his partners within the decision-making structures at Wendy’s sets the company apart from its competitors in the fast-food industry. In the words of Derek Sideman of the online journal Truthout:
Trian is the top owner of Wendy’s and dominates Wendy’s board of directors. Peltz is Wendy’s chairman, Trian President and Founding Partner Peter May is vice chairman, and Peltz’s son Matthew is a director. Others on the board also have close ties to Trian.
And when a shareholder as dominant as Trian insinuates itself into the corporate structure as deeply, and widely, as Trian has in Wendy’s, the decision-making process is necessarily altered, and not always for the best. Indeed, despite nearly twenty years of the Campaign for Fair Food, ten years of the Fair Food Program, and four years of a growing consumer boycott, Wendy’s stands alone among fast-food industry leaders in refusing to join the award-winning social responsibility program. It is only reasonable to conclude that the exceptional power of Trian Partners within Wendy’s is the reason.
