Inside Nelson Peltz’s civil war at Unilever

Officially, Unilever’s CEO swap happened because the company’s board was “eager to step up the pace of [its] strategy execution” after the post-COVID price inflation rush, which temporarily boosted Unilever’s profits, came to an end. (Unilever’s strategy to improve performance included streamlining its so-called “power brands” portfolio, including Dove soap, Rexona deodorant, and Knorr soup, while avoiding large acquisitions.) 

It also follows some difficult decisions Schumacher made, such as pulling out of Russia belatedly after several twists and turns, and listing its ice cream business (including Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s) in the Netherlands, instead of the U.S., which some board members were pushing due to the higher valuations that consumer retail stocks often attract in America. In all, it’s hard not to see the hand of activist investor and Unilever board member Nelson Peltz and his investment firm Trian in this week’s decision. 

In a statement provided to CEO Daily on Wednesday, Peltz made a clear endorsement of the new CEO: “Trian believes continued operational improvements and sustained financial outperformance should drive Unilever’s valuation multiple higher. … Fernando Fernandez has the right skills and expertise to accelerate the company’s growth action plan.”

Since Peltz came on the scene three years ago, there has certainly been change: three CEOs have been at the helm, and nearly half the board has been replaced. The financial picture has been mixed. Since June 2022, the stock price rose 15%, in line with the FTSE 100 index, but it remains below its 2019 peak. Results for 2024, announced last week, showed slow sales growth and a (steep) decline in profits. And for 2025, the company said it expected “subdued” market growth to continue.

But there are plenty of skeptics who think Peltz’s methods for improving short-term financial results often don’t work, including Yale University’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. In a Coins2Day commentary piece last year, he called Peltz “America’s most overrated activist investor,” arguing that “roughly 70% of his board intrusion resulted in those companies underperforming the S&P 500.”

While Unilever’s previous CEO Paul Polman embraced a purpose-centric approach, for Peltz, whether a company is “mission-driven” is not material: Before taking on Unilever, he was involved with Kraft-Heinz, a company whose shareholder-primacy approach Polman said “could not have been more different” than Unilever’s.

In the end, one company insider told me, they are unsure Peltz’s involvement has done the company any good. “It’s a typical example of corporate America coming to Europe and impatiently chasing short-term returns,” they said. “They should have never let Peltz in.” — Peter Vanham

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Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady, [email protected], LinkedIn.

Top news

Trump threatens yet more tariffs, this time against Europe. “Let’s be honest, the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it. And they’ve done a good job of it,” the president said yesterday. The president is proposing a 25% tax on goods from Europe; the EU threatened to respond in-kind. Reality check: The EU was formed after World War 2 to bind the continent together and prevent future wars.

Trump’s ongoing battle against the WSJ editorial board: “I don’t understand The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, never have … they come out with some real CLINKERS, like today’s Editorial that my Auto Tariffs will hurt the Michigan Automobile Business. They are sooo WRONG,” the president said on Truth Social. The WSJ had argued that tariffs on auto parts will hurt carmakers in the state.

Nvidia’s big beat. The chipmaker posted record quarterly revenue of $39.3 billion, up 12% from last quarter and 78% from a year ago, beating analysts’ expectations. The DeepSeek threat turned out to be a mere blip.

Gene Hackman, his wife, and their dog were found dead at their home in New Mexico. The star of The French Connection was 95. Foul play is not suspected.

U.S. Supreme Court may change discrimination standard. The justices seemed sympathetic to a lawsuit in which a heterosexual woman, who claims she was removed from her job and replaced by a gay man, is arguing that it is wrong for courts to require different, higher standards when white, straight and male plaintiffs sue in employment cases.

Nissan CEO in danger: Sources say the car company is considering plans to replace current CEO Makoto Uchida to revive negotiations with Honda. Local business media suggests current CFO Jérémie Papin could take over. 

Texas measles outbreak kills a child. The child was not vaccinated. In parts of West Texas, one in five children are not vaccinated.

Stats on Salesforce’s deployment of AI: According to CNBC, “Salesforce said it has completed more than 3,000 paid deals involving Agentforce since October. Agentforce has gotten involved in 380,000 conversations through Salesforce’s help website, with humans getting involved in 2% of cases, according to the statement. ‘A lot of other vendors are talking about their agent capabilities, but few are able to show that they’ve got this really running at scale,’" CEO Marc Benioff said.

From Coins2Day

What to do about Intel?
Several former Intel board directors, in a commentary piece for Coins2Day, argue that the beleaguered tech company should spin off its manufacturing business—and that Washington should ensure that only U.S. Or Western investors take it over. The Trump administration is reportedly considering Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC as a possible buyer for Intel’s plants. But as the directors argue that “a global monopoly in advanced chip manufacturing to TSMC would be a devastating blow down the road to America’s world-leading design firms.”

BP falls back in love with oil
BP is planning to “fundamentally reset” its strategy after years of turmoil and an ongoing fight with activist investor Elliott Management. The U.K. Oil firm will cut its investment in renewables, offload $20 billion in assets, and increase gas and oil spending by $10 billion. BP may have tried to go green too early: “In an industry where timing is everything, BP made the right bet at the wrong time,” Usha Haley, a professor of international business at Wichita State University, tells Coins2Day.

An attempted coup at City Developments Limited
A feud between a father and son is rocking one of Singapore’s biggest property developers. Kwek Leng Beng, the billionaire chairman of property developer City Developments Limited, accused his son, CDL CEO Sherman Kwek of an “attempted coup.” CDL halted trading of its shares on Wednesday, with Sherman saying he was disappointed by his father’s “extreme actions.” A truce has since been declared, with the younger Kwek promising not to take further actions. 

The markets

• The S&P 500 was flat yesterday after four straight days of losses … Nvidia closed up nearly 4% yesterday and was up another 0.7% pre-market this morning … Seven & i Holdings plunged over 10% after the founding family’s buyout bid collapsed … Stay tuned for U.S. Q4 GDP, and earnings from Dell and HP … Futures in the S&P were up 0.54% pre-market.

From the analysts

• JP Morgan on Nvidia: “F4Q25 results and F1Q26 guidance for revenue that tracked ahead of consensus, underscoring continued strong momentum around AI infrastructure investments... With Blackwell starting to become a material contribution in the quarter ($11 bn or 28% of total revenue), we envision the read-through for Compute companies (e.g., Dell, Super Micro, HP Enterprise) and Optical Component companies (e.g., Coherent, Fabrinet) in our coverage to be positive,” per Harlan Sur et al.
• EY on inflation and GDP: “Beyond the inflationary impulse and negative growth impacts from higher tariffs, heightened policy uncertainty could lead to financial market volatility as well as businesses and consumers increasingly adopting a wait-and-see approach. In light of these increasing downside risks to growth, we believe the US economy will slow to 2% trend growth rate in the coming quarters,” per Gregory Daco.
• Convera on investor nervousness: “Investors remain on edge as macro and political shifts create volatility. The growth-scare narrative worsened on Tuesday when a key consumer confidence measure fell significantly in February, raising fears about the economy. Traders increased bets on Fed rate cuts, although inflation pressures are rising,” per George Vessey.
• UBS on consumer confidence: “US equity markets were a little disturbed by a sharp decline in a consumer confidence survey—but these surveys are distorted by partisan politics. Depending on the cable news network one watches, the US is either an unpleasant version of Panem from ‘The Hunger Games’ or a Panglossian paradise where all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Clear economic signals are hardly likely to come from economic surveys in such a situation,” per Paul Donovan.

Around the watercooler