Boardroom aggressor

BILLIONAIRE Nelson Peltz, 81, is one of the most ruthless corporate raiders on the planet.

Through his firm Trian, set up in 2005, he takes stakes in firms he believes are underperforming and agitates for change.

He has muscled his way on to the board of FTSE 100 consumer goods giant Unilever. Peltz (pictured below) was also the catalyst for one of the most bitter takeover battles in British corporate history, the takeover of much-loved chocolate company Cadbury by American cheese seller Kraft in 2010.

He claims to work ‘collaboratively’ and help managers build their businesses. At Disney, however, he is seen as a hostile force.

Whatever one thinks of his methods, they have made him rich with a personal fortune of $1.7billion, according to Forbes. He has acquired a portfolio of homes, private jets and helicopters. He has also fathered ten children, most of them with his third wife, former fashion model Claudia Heffner Peltz, who at nearly 70 sports blonde mermaid tresses and looks decades younger.

Thanks to the marriage of youngest daughter Nicola to Brooklyn Beckham, Peltz has Posh ’n’ Becks for inlaws. The wedding was held at Montsorrel, his vast 27-bedroom oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, worth an estimated $334million.

Peltz also owns High Winds, a 130-acre property in Bedford, New York state, reported to have its own lake and waterfall, an indoor ice hockey rink and a flock of albino peacocks. An old-school alpha male, he appears to revel in his hard-nosed reputation.

‘What sense is being a billionaire if you’re not a bully?’ was his retort when recently confronted with accusations of browbeating Nicola’s wedding planners. Before his marriage to Claudia in the 1980s, he squired the most beautiful actresses of the day including the late Dame Diana Rigg and Victoria Principal, who played Pam Ewing in the TV series Dallas.

He and fellow tycoon the late Saul Steinberg are said to have once had four women play a topless doubles tennis match for their private delectation, a story he has never quite denied. ‘In the 1970s I did women. That’s better than doing guys,’ said an unrepentant Peltz.

In an odd coincidence, Steinberg launched an unsuccessful hostile bid for Disney in the mid1980s, prompting a shake-up that ultimately led to Bob Iger taking the helm.