Dan Loeb's Third Point Takes $3.5 Billion Stake in Nestlé -- Update

Billionaire activist investor Daniel Loeb's Third Point LLC hedge fund has taken its largest-ever bet on a public company, accumulating a $3.5 billion stake in Nestlé SA and piling pressure on the world's largest packaged foods company to find ways to accelerate growth.

"Despite having arguably the best positioned portfolio in the consumer packaged goods industry, Nestlé shares have significantly underperformed most of their U.S. and European consumer staples peers on a three year, five year, and ten year total shareholder return basis," said the fund in a statement.

Third Point is known for agitating for change at public companies. Mr. Loeb played a big role in shaking up internet technology company Yahoo Inc. as an activist shareholder and board member some years ago.

Nestlé in February said it was dropping a long-running sales-growth target after missing that goal for the fourth straight year. The company's new Chief Executive Mark Schneider, a health-care veteran, recently said Nestlé would look to sell its U.S. confectionery business.

Write to Saabira Chaudhuri at saabira.chaudhuri@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 25, 2017 18:26 ET (22:26 GMT)