market folly

Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management just filed an amended 13F with the SEC and in it they reveal a stake in Kraft (KFT).

The new disclosure shows Trian owning 12,176,335 shares of KFT as of March 31st, 2011. Adding this data to their original filing, Trian's KFT position represented 18.3% of their reported assets at the time.

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital also owns a sizable stake in KFT and likes the opportunity for organic growth and margin expansion. You can view Pershing's presentation on Kraft here.

Nelson Peltz's business partner Peter May recently laid out Trian's bullish case for Tiffany & Co (TIF) at the Ira Sohn Investment Conference as well. In the past, we've also detailed some of Trian's portfolio activity.

Omitting Positions From 13F Filings

Trian Fund Management omitted the Kraft position in their original 13F filed on May 16th which included a note that reads, "confidential information has been omitted from this Form 13F report and filed separately with the Commission."

Trian most likely arranged this treatment with the SEC because they were still in the midst of acquiring their position and felt public disclosure would boost prices. Other large investors have utilized this technique in the past, with the most notable being Warren Buffett.

Also, we recently detailed a scenario where Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital filed information on their Family Dollar (FDO) position confidentially with the SEC and released the info to the public at a later date. It seems more and more prominent funds are being granted this treatment by the SEC so we'll have to monitor a potential growing trend.