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Unilever CEO: 'I'm thoroughly enjoying' working with activist investor Nelson Peltz

Brian Sozzi
·Executive Editor
·2-min read

So far so good says Unilever's CEO Alan Jope in working with his new board member, noted activist investor Nelson Peltz.

"I would like to just confirm that Nelson is turning out to be a great member of the board,"Jope said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "I'm thoroughly enjoying working with him. And as far as he tells me, he's enjoying working with me."

Peltz joined the board of the consumer products giant in May.

Investors are banking on Peltz to push through a turnaround of the lumbering Unilever, maker of everything from Hellman's mayonnaise to Vaseline. Peltz has the track record in consumer products to do so: he was an instrumental figure in reorganizing P&G as a then member of that board. The company restructured its divisions, cut costs and has since gone onto a product innovation boom.

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P&G stock has been a top-performer the past five years, up 56%.

Peltz also worked closely with now former P&G CEO David Taylor, who ended up praising Peltz's work after a contentious proxy fight.

As for long-time Unilever exec Jope, he said in late September that he plans to retire at the end of 2023. The decision comes amid a lagging stock price for Unilever since he took over in 2019, several mixed quarters, and calls by Wall Street to cut costs and divest assets.

Jope told Yahoo Finance that he will still retire next year despite getting along well with Peltz, adding that investors shouldn't expect a major operational overhaul on his watch.

"We've been busy on portfolio change," Jope said. "We've committed to the market that we are not undertaking a major portfolio change for the foreseeable future. And our board is unanimously aligned behind the strategy that we've laid out in our last couple of earnings quarters and we will again in our Capital Markets Day. So please don't be expecting any surprises from Unilever. We've got five wonderful divisions, a business that's capable of delivering high-quality growth, and that, as you'll see from our performance and our share price, is rather resilient through the types of downturn that the world is going into right now."

Hellmann's, a brand of Unilever, is seen on display in a store in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., March 24, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
Hellmann's, a brand of Unilever, is seen on display in a store in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., March 24, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly (Andrew Kelly / reuters)

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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