Jana Partners, an activist hedge fund that has been a thorn in Whole Foods' side, has a stake of 9% in it and is set to make a fortune on the sale to Amazon.
Days after it came to light that he had lambasted activist investors as "greedy bastards," Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has struck a deal that is set to net one such investor a massive payday.
Amazon on Friday announced it would buy Whole Foods in a megadeal valued at $13.7 billion, or $42 a share.
Jana Partners, an activist hedge fund that has been a thorn in Mackey's side, is the second-largest shareholder, with a stake of 9%.
Its share of the company is worth $1.2 billion at the deal price, a $400 million gain from the $800 million it paid to acquire the stake.
Jana Partners, which manages more than $5 billion, upped its position in Whole Foods in April and pushed the company to look into strategic options including a sale. Mackey reshuffled the company's board in May.
Earlier this week, Mackey called Jana Partners "greedy bastards" in a series of interviews with Texas Monthly. He also referred to Jana Partners as "Ringwraiths," villainous characters from the "Lord of the Rings" series.
"These guys just want to sell us, because they think they can make forty or fifty percent in a short period of time," Mackey told Texas Monthly's Tom Foster. "They're greedy bastards, and they're putting a bunch of propaganda out there, trying to destroy my reputation and the reputation of Whole Foods, because it's in their self-interest to do so."
Jana Partners, an activist hedge fund that has been a thorn in Whole Foods' side, has a stake of 9% in it and is set to make a fortune on the sale to Amazon. Read Full Story
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