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Good Bad Billionaire

Nelson Peltz: Junk bond activist

Oct 5, 2026 · 45m

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About this episode

Nelson Peltz made his money via some contentious methods - junk bonds, corporate raids, leveraged buyouts and activist investing - but he is most famous because his daughter Nicola married a Beckham. BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng follow Peltz’s career from dropping out of school to become a ski bum, to making a billion investing in some of the some of the world’s most famous brands, including Snapple, Heinz, Procter & Gamble, Cadbury, Tiffany & Co, and PepsiCo. They discover a man who doesn’t like to be told what to do, and who is always up for a (proxy) battle. Good Bad Billionaire is the podcast that explores the lives of the super-rich and famous, tracking…