market folly

Bill Ackman's activist hedge fund Pershing Square Capital has filed a 13D with the SEC regarding shares of Mondelez (MDLZ).  Per the filing, Pershing Square owns 7.5% of Mondelez with over 120.26 million shares.  This is a newly disclosed position.

The filing indicates they sold puts and bought call options in late June and early July and they also bought common stock.

It also says that as of August 6th, Pershing own over 64.8 million over the counter forward purchase contracts with a net purchase price of over $2.5 billion with Nomura as a counterparty. There's quite a few transactions and you can view them here.

The 13D also contains the normal activist boilerplate that they intend to engage with management.

Mondelez was spun-off from the original Kraft entity and represents more of the 'snacks and sweets' business.

The standalone Kraft Foods, on the other hand, is mainly their branded foods consumer staples company.  KRFT merged with Heinz recently under the guidance of 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway.  So now you have activists at both of the entities.

For more on Pershing Square, head to Bill Ackman's comments at the recent Delivering Alpha conference.