Nestlé’s lacklustre results fuel activist investor’s campaign for strategy change
Vevey, Switzerland — Nestlé forecast modest organic sales growth this year and reported its weakest gain on record in 2017 on Thursday, giving fresh fuel to investor Daniel Loeb’s campaign to overhaul strategy at the world’s biggest food group. Shares in the maker of KitKat chocolate bars and Nescafé coffee hit a 10-month low after it said organic growth, which excludes acquisitions and currency moves, was only 2.4% in 2017, missing the lowest estimate of 2.6% in a Reuters poll of analysts. Nestlé and its rivals have been buying and selling brands to improve performance as sales slow due to a shift in consumer tastes towards healthier foods and independent labels. Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point took a $3.5bn Nestlé stake last year and has been pushing to speed up its transformation into a higher-growth, more-efficient health food company. "Work on costs usually kicks in faster than work on growth," CEO Mark Schneider said at Nestlé’s headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland, in part due to...
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