Bengaluru — Nestlé investors have called for chair Paul Bulcke to step down over the departure of a second CEO in just more than a year, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.
Shareholders told FT the dismissal of former CEO Laurent Freixe and the way investigations into his conduct were handled had worsened their concerns over governance at Nestlé and led them to question Bulcke’s decision-making.
“I don’t think Bulcke will move on before April but he should have left when Mark Schneider was forced out,” Alexandre Stucki, founder of AS Investment Management, which represents founding family investors in Nestlé, told the newspaper.
Nestlé did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Swiss food giant abruptly dismissed Freixe at the beginning of September for failing to disclose a romantic relationship with a subordinate.
Freixe’s removal came a year after predecessor Schneider suddenly departed and two-and-a-half months after Bulcke said he would step down next year.
A Nestlé spokesperson told the Financial Times the two CEO departures were unrelated and that Freixe’s conduct was a clear breach of its code of conduct.
Bulcke, 70, who has been chair of the board since April 2017, joined Nestlé in 1979 and served as the company’s CEO in 2008-16.
Support for Bulcke has ebbed due to doubts about Nestlé’s recovery after the pandemic, investors said in July, with sales volumes at the world’s largest maker of packaged food flagging in 2023 as it increased prices to offset rising raw material costs.
In April, Bulcke was re-elected with 84.8% of the vote, a substantial drop from the nearly 96% he received in 2017.
Reuters
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