Shareholders circle as Unilever braces for full year results
Top shareholders are piling pressure on Unilever over its failed takeover bid for Glaxosmithkline (GSK) ahead of the company’s annual results.
The FTSE-100 listed maker of Marmite and Ben & Jerry’s is under scrutiny from its shareholders after a botched attempt to takeover the consumer goods arm of GSK through a £50bn offer made last month. After Unilever publishes its results on Thursday company management will face an uphill battle to win over shareholders who have been vocally calling for changes to the company’s governance and structure.
“They’re under the microscope,” said one top investor in comments to The Times. “They’re under a lot of pressure with the results.”
Unilever reported revenue of €39.3bn (£33bn) for the first nine months of the financial year, up by 1.9 per cent compared to 2020. While the company’s outlook was positive for the full year the company warned that cost inflation remains at strongly elevated levels, which will continue into next year.
Analysts at UBS told the Times that “sentiment towards the management is deteriorating”.
The embattled company has faced calls from a top shareholder to break up the business. Bert Flossbach, founder and chief investment officer of Flossbach von Storch, told the FT that the company is too diverse, and would benefit from slimming its operations.
“Unilever should seriously think about splitting the company,” he told the FT on . “Talk of synergies between different businesses is usually theoretical and designed to keep the status quo, and smaller than the efficiency gains that you would get from a split.
Another major shareholder, in Unilever’s top 20, has also reportedly urged for the removal of chair Nils Andersen, after the board gave chief executive Alan Jope the green light to continue hiking its bid for GSK.
Read more: Unilever slashes 1,500 jobs worldwide as part of ambitious global restructure plan