Over the past four decades, Nelson Peltz and Peter May, founders with Edward Garden of New York-based hedge fund firm Trian Fund Management, have refined the art of activist investing. In 1972 May joined a regional food distributor controlled by Peltz and within six years they sold the firm to start their own operations turnaround consultancy for banks and corporations known as NPM Group. Garden, Peltz’s son-in-law who was a managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston, joined Peltz and May in 2003 and helped turn fast food chain operator Triarc Companies, which the duo used to buy a strategic stake in and merged with Wendy’s International in 2008, into alternative asset management firm Trian Partners. The new firm mirrored the investment strategy Peltz and May had executed for decades…