By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON, (Reuters) – Two-and-a-half years ago, Nelson Peltz was a billionaire activist investor. He often presented himself as a partner offering constructive advice to companies and told a group of hedge fund and pension managers that there wasn’t one who had the best ideas.

Sitting only a few feet away, nodding in agreement, was Procter & Gamble (NYSE:) Co Chief Executive David Taylor, who ended one of the industry’s most acrimonious corporate battles by inviting Peltz onto P&G’s board in 2018.

For nearly four years until Peltz’ retirement from the P&G board in August, the men traded ideas about how to woo new customers to buy Tide detergent and Pampers diapers. Since Trian first invested with P&G, the company’s stock price nearly doubled.

Now Peltz’ Trian Fund Management has built a stake in P&G rival Unilever (NYSE:) Plc, the purveyor of Dove and Lifebuoy soap, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Knorr bouillon, according to several sources. Trian refused to confirm and did not comment on this story.

A half a dozen bankers and lawyers who have worked with Peltz for roughly a decade and watched him operate at a number of large companies expect he may soon bring the playbook that worked at Cincinnati-based P&G to Unilever’s London-based CEO Alan Jope.

An advisor, who isn’t allowed to speak publicly about Trian’s private company, said that Nelson Peltz does not have a strong soap background. However, he is able to navigate complex businesses. His team is able to work from income statements to determine what levers are needed to improve a company.

Unilever did not respond to our request for comment.

At P&G, Trian criticized aging brands, a “suffocating bureaucracy,” short term thinking and sluggish shareholder returns. Many of the same problems https://www.reuters.com/business/unilevers-soap-opera-ma-job-cuts-grumpy-investors-2022-01-25 exist at Unilever, where the share price has been roughly flat for years. The company last week suffered a stinging rejection https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/unilever-offers-50-bln-pounds-gsk-unit-report-2022-01-15 when GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:) refused to sell it its consumer health unit, bankers said.

Unilever is already taking steps to lower costs. It has consolidated its London headquarters, and eliminated slower-growing companies like Lipton tea. Unilever, which employs about 149,000 people worldwide, on Tuesday said it plans to cut about 1,500 management jobs https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/unilever-cut-1500-management-jobs-strategic-overhaul-2022-01-25 in a restructuring to create five product-focused divisions – a revamp that echoes P&G’s reshaping three years ago https://www.reuters.com/article/us-procter-gamble-strategy-idUKKCN1ND37M.

Analysts and bankers agree that Unilever has more work to do. This includes winning the digital marketplace, and overcoming the insular culture where many of the company’s top executives have been working for years. The bankers suggested that Unilever has room for improvement in terms of its slow sales and drop in operating profits over the 2021 full year.

Half a dozen Trian employees who are familiar with the operation of Trian said they have made the organization an active operator that will stay on the job for years. The firm has also previously invested in Mondelez (NASDAQ) Pepsico As well as (NASDAQ: General Electric (NYSE:), it is an investor there since 2015.

Trian enjoys presenting itself to the board as an added resource and signals it is not looking to replace other members. However, insiders say that Trian often dominates the boardroom and overtakes others.

Trian’s analysts are tireless in producing data and information binders to aid the board and management, according to people.

Trian could use an investor or banker’s model to do what it wants at a company. However, the investors and bankers also stated that there are few risks of corporate secrets being leaked because principals and the whole firm tend to sign confidentiality agreements.

The team at the firm is largely hidden from the public eye and the three founding partners rarely demand the resignation of their chief executive, analysts and bankers said. Trian has made recent investments in mutual funds companies Invesco, JanusHenderson.