Nelson Peltz

Nelson Peltz has married thrice in his life. He is currently married to former model Claudia Heffner. He has two children from his first two marriages and eight children from his third marriage. Actors Will Peltz and Nicola Peltz are two of his children. Presently, Nelson stays with his wife in Bedford, New York.

Apart from contributing heavily to Jewish causes, Nelson is an ardent supporter of former US president George W. Bush and is said to have made a quarter-million-dollar contribution to his presidential campaign.

Nelson Peltz was born on June 24, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, in a wealthy business family, to Claire and Maurice Peltz. His father worked for ‘A. Peltz & Sons,’ a company founded by Nelson’s grandfather, Adolph Peltz.

In the initial years of his life, Nelson remained a rebel and never showed any interest in joining the family business. In 1963, he dropped out of the ‘Wharton School’ of the ‘University of Pennsylvania,’ in order to focus on his dream of becoming a ski instructor. He moved to Oregon to fulfil his dreams of learning skiing. However, he soon came back and joined the family business as a driver. He worked for less than 100 dollars per week initially.

The company managed the transportation of food products to various restaurants and hotels in New York City. He worked in the company with his elder brother Robert. Claire Peltz soon handed over the charge of the company to the boys, and over the next few years, the company received a solid boost in gross profits.

A few years after taking the charge of the company, the brothers shifted the core focus of the firm from fresh produce to institutionalized frozen-food products. Owing to this, the company grew rapidly, and in the 70s, the brothers took control of several smaller food companies in New York City. In the course of a decade, the company went from being a 2.5-million-dollar private company to a public company with an annual revenue of 150 million dollars.

In 1972, the brothers started a new food company, ‘Flagstaff Corp,’ and ten years later, after the company went bankrupt, Robert purchased back the assets of ‘Peltz Food’ from Flagstaff.’ This marked the end of the brothers’ partnership.

In the mid-80s, Nelson found a business acquaintance in Peter May, who worked as the chief financial officer with ‘Flagstaff’ and went in search of new acquisitions. In April 1983, stakes were bought by them in ‘Triangle Industries Inc.,’ a major wire and vending-machine company. Within a few years, the business expertise of Peter and Nelson made the company feature on the ‘Fortune 100’ list and transformed it into one of the top packaging companies in the world.

‘Triangle’ was more of a target practice for ‘Nelson’ and it was sold to a French company, ‘Pechiney.’ Nelson continued acquiring more companies such as ‘American Can’ and ‘National Can.’ His success throughout the 80s paved way for greater victories in the future, and by the arrival of the 90s, things improved furthermore.

In the mid-90s, Nelson used an investment vehicle ‘Triarc Cos’ to acquire ‘Snapple,’ from ‘Quaker Oats.’ Without any intention of keeping it around for a long time, Nelson and May started putting it out there, and in 2000, three years after acquiring ‘Snapple,’ they sold it to ‘Cadbury Schweppes.’ This major turnaround performed by Nelson and May featured as a case study at the prestigious ‘Harvard Business School.’