Add billionaire investor Nelson Peltz to the growing number of activists circling Time Warner.
Peltz’s Trian Fund Management could soon be a more vocal player in the future of the New York media giant, adding to the pressure on CEO Jeff BewÂkes to boost the sagging share price.
Peltz is looking again at the media sector and is eyeing taking an activist position in Time Warner, the owner of HBO, the Warner Bros. film studio and cable channels TNT and TBS, sources said.
One of the most well-known activist investors, Peltz has a long history of forcing big changes at companies, including DuPont, Kraft and PepsiCo.
Peltz hasn’t dabbled in media since acquiring a stake in Tribune Co. in 2006. Perhaps a stint as a board member at Madison Square Garden Co. has whet his appetite. He sits on the board alongside former Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons.
Trian recently beefed up its media bona fides by hiring former DirecTV Chairman and CEO Michael White as an advisory partner. White brings deep knowledge of the pay-TV business such as what distributors pay for programming contracts across the industry. (AT&T acquired DirecTV last year.)
Trian declined to comment on Time Warner.
If Peltz does decide to jump into Time Warner fray, he might feel a little crowded.
Speculation that other activists will soon begin pushing for a sale or breakup of Time Warner has reached fever pitch in recent weeks.
Several possible candidates include Corvex Capital, whose founder Keith Meister is a Carl Icahn protege. Icahn, who waged an unsuccessful proxy battle against Time Warner in 2006, had denied that he is building up a position in the company again.
Hedge fund billionaire Daniel Loeb has also planted a flag on the playing field.
Loeb, who rattled the cage at Yahoo! and made a $665 million killing by installing CEO Marissa Mayer, is said to be making calls around the industry to figure out what his potential move might be.
Last month, Bewkes met with several disgruntled shareholders such as Dodge & Cox to defend his management of the company after he rebuffed a takeover bid by 21st Century Fox in 2014 that valued the company at $85 per share.
Shareholders are grumbling that the stock — which seems to be stuck in the 70s — should be performing better after Bewkes promised to boost growth and the share price in a showy presentation in October 2014.
The shares, which have risen around 10 percent in the past month on sale talk, rose 1.24 percent to close at $70.44 on Friday.
Time Warner will report quarterly results on Feb. 10.