"Let's experiment with 'peel and dip' ketchup containers at quick service restaurants," he exhorted the board, in a letter filed with regulators. "We believe the existing packets are a deterrent to potential consumers who often have a difficult time opening them."
In the 1980s Peltz owned the National Can Co., whose last Baltimore factory closed in late 1991.
Legg, which employs 850 people in Baltimore (out of 3,600 companywide) has barely had time to catch its breath after a horrendous two years. Its stock went from $100 to $12, although it has bounced back to $30 as the overall market recovered.
Bill Miller and other fund managers lost their mojo, and mutual-fund investors stampeded to the exits. Founder Raymond A. "Chip" Mason stepped down as chairman.
Just when the drama was subsiding - Miller is comfortably beating most of his peers this year - Peltz comes knocking. Nobody knows what he'll do.
He has pledged to respect Legg's "investment autonomy," Legg spokeswoman Mary Athridge said yesterday. Translation: He won't tell Bill Miller what stocks to buy.
Beyond that Peltz isn't saying much, which leaves room for plenty of speculation. Some think he might want to take Legg private - take out a huge loan and buy all its public shares. How that will happen when Legg already carries $5 billion in debt on its books is a mystery.
Others believe he may want to split off one or more asset-management members of the Legg Mason federation that Chip Mason built up over the decades. Legg Mason's bond unit, Western Asset Management, might be the first to break away under this scenario.
Some think he might push to sell off the whole company. Still others suggest that Peltz may be content to wait and watch, hitching a ride on recovering financial markets.
"It sounds like Nelson is on board with their current game plan for getting the ship right," Morningstar analyst Greggory Warren told The Baltimore Sun on Monday.
Peltz wouldn't be sitting on the bench telling the coach what to do if he were OK with the game plan.
"It's very costly" for activist investors to get a seat on a board, said Robin Greenwood, assistant professor of business administration at Harvard. "You have to hire lawyers. It takes a huge amount of time."
You don't go to that much trouble to be a yes man. It may be that a Legg comeback will keep Peltz happy, at least for a while. But if it's not truly spectacular, he's going to have his own ideas.
