Unilever’s food mashup is hardly a delectable prospect for shareholders
If Unilever shareholders thought the era of management-speak twaddle ended a few chief executives ago, say hello to their new partner in the food game,Brendan Foley, the boss of US spice and condiments firm McCormick, ran through the menu as he presented his big grab for Unilever’s Hellmann’s-to-Knorr-to-Marmite food division,The logic, he explained, is all about “maximal adjacency”, “actionable growth levers” and “end-to-end flavour experiences”,From the point of view of Unilever’s investors, the guff wouldn’t matter if McCormick were paying a fat price in a cash deal,But this $44.
8bn transaction is not like that,Unilever will extract $15,7bn in cash but the bulk of the value is represented by the equity element,Unilever’s shareholders will end up owning 55% of an expanded McCormick and Unilever itself will have 10%,It is a very long way from being a clean break.
In effect, the FTSE 100 firm is merging its food business with a smaller US firm that will take on oodles of debt to step up several leagues.Fernando Fernández, Unilever’s chief executive, called it “another decisive step in sharpening our portfolio”, but it is plainly more messy than previous exits.The historic Flora spreads business and the Lipton tea operation were sold straightforwardly to private equity, and the ice-creams went in a simple spin-off last year.In this latest transaction, Unilever’s investors must decide what to do with their helping of McCormick shares when they eventually get them, noting that recent performance (down about a third in the past 12 months) is less spicy than the firm’s Cholula hot sauce.To think this complicated deal will end up creating value, you have to believe two things.
Only one is easy: that Unilever, unencumbered by a food business that it hasn’t enthused about for years, will prosper,Yes, a mini-break may focus more attention on the household goods division (Comfort, Cif and Domestos and so on) and the one that properly excites Fernández: the beauty, wellbeing and personal care (Dove, Vaseline, fancy shampoos and so on),But the food mashup just looks awkward,Unilever is contributing the bigger portion (annual sales of $12bn compared with $8bn), the one with faster recent sales growth (2,7% compared with 2%) and the one with superior profit margins (24% compared with 17%).
On the basis on those statistics, you’d think Unilever would conclude that it would be better off just managing what it’s got.After all, the appeal of Unilever’s food business is meant to be its two well-invested winning brands in Hellmann’s and Knorr, which dominate the whole.How are they helped by a side-serving of less-than-global brands such as McCormick’s French’s yellow mustard or Old Bay seasoning? Yes, Unilever gets some cash out to fund share buy-backs, but not a sum that wowed the market.The permanent arrangement is a more sprawling combined food business under faraway management.Fernández claimed it’s a case of “unlocking trapped value through a growth-led separation” but that was before he had seen the reaction in Unilever’s share price – down 7%.
There’s no way to season that number: it’s maximally adjacent to a thumbs-down,
Tiger Woods says looking at his phone led to Florida rollover crash
Tiger Woods told authorities he was looking down at his phone and changing the radio station before his rollover crash last week in Florida, according to a probable cause affidavit.The 50-year-old golf star was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence on Friday afternoon after his Land Rover clipped a truck and rolled on to its side near his home on Jupiter Island.According to the affidavit, obtained Tuesday by the Guardian, Woods told Martin County sheriff’s investigators that he did not notice the vehicle in front of him had slowed down before the crash.The affidavit states that Woods attempted to pass the vehicle by crossing over a double yellow line into oncoming traffic before striking it with the front right side of his SUV, causing him to lose control and flip on to the driver’s side.Deputies said Woods was the sole occupant of the vehicle and was unable to exit from the driver’s side due to the rollover, instead climbing out through the front passenger side
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A new documentary charts the tragic events that led to the former NBA star overdosing in a Nevada brothel – and what came nextThere’s a version of the Lamar Odom story that ends in a Nevada brothel. It’s not hard to imagine the grand finale – the TMZ bulletin relating his fatal drug overdose, followed by emotional tributes to what was lost: a radical basketball prodigy of the New York tradition, a two-time NBA champion with the Kobe Bryant Lakers, a glittering career that spanned coasts and eras before caving under the weight of addiction. A cautionary tale of incandescent fame, with Odom’s celebrity wife Khloé Kardashian cast as a man-eater to eclipse her more notorious older sister, would have been the epilogue cemented in a thousand think pieces.But by living to tell the tale, Odom has instead become the latest fallen star to prove a core truism of Western mythmaking: heroes who don’t die young are doomed to live long enough to become the villain in their own tale.“There is a way of understanding Lamar where everything in his life is kind of in reaction to death hunting him since he was a kid,” says Ryan Duffy, executive producer of Netflix’s Untold sports docuseries
County Championship 2026: team-by-team guide to the new season
Surrey look well placed to reclaim the title after their runner-up finish last season while all eyes are on promotion for LancashireCaptain Tom Westley Coach Chris Silverwood Last season 6th Div OneEssex seemed to spend most of last summer chasing their tail. The bowling resources were stretched, with Sam Cook battling injury as well as spending time with England and Simon Harmer not romping through sides with quite the gusto he once did. Some prudent signings have added ballast: zippy Zaman Akhter from Gloucestershire and young Mitchell Killeen, from Durham, can provide cover for Cook and the ever reliable Jamie Porter. Jordan Cox will miss the early part of the season with the IPL but young Charlie Allison has a chance to make a name for himself after a fabulous 2025. Prediction 6thCaptain Kiran Carlson Coach Richard Dawson Last season 2nd Div TwoAfter 20 years skulking around Division Two, Glamorgan are finally back in the big time
The Breakdown | Parling’s TV spat with Doyle symbolises the tug of war for rugby’s modern soul
No prizes for guessing the most viewed rugby clip at the weekend. The number of views on X has long since passed three million and – spoiler alert – people were not studying the finer detail of Gloucester’s defensive effort at Villa Park on Saturday. Leicester’s Geoff Parling used to be just another stern-faced Prem coach; suddenly he is an unlikely global social media star.For those who missed it – and here’s hoping you enjoyed your mini-break on Jupiter – here is a potted summary. The TNT Sports presenter Craig Doyle and a new colleague, Liam MacDevitt, were on the pitch before the game, with MacDevitt being urged to take a kick at goal as part of his on-screen Prem initiation
Middlesex ‘drifting towards irrelevance’: Gatting leads revolt against club leadership
A group of past Middlesex players led by the former England captain Mike Gatting has delivered a withering assessment of the county’s leadership on the eve of the new season and warned the club risk “drifting towards irrelevance”.In an open letter to members – a clarion call before the club’s annual general meeting on 15 April – Gatting and his co-signatories have highlighted a lack of transparency and called the cricket setup “a mess”.The former West Indies opener Desmond Haynes and England’s Mark Ramprakash are among others to have put their names to the letter.They wrote: “Middlesex was once a byword for excellence in the game, a club with a proud history of success and a strong, competitive culture brought about by hard work on and off the pitch. Instead, around the counties the men’s teams now are variously regarded as ‘a soft touch’ and ‘lacking fight’
Sinner and Sabalenka’s Sunshine Doubles turn up heat on chasing pack
“No, I think it’s all an individual sport,” Jannik Sinner says, chuckling quietly, as he reflects on another triumphant fortnight at the Miami Open after his efficient win over Jiri Lehecka. Sinner had been asked whether he was aware that his win meant the maintenance of one of the defining records of this new era of men’s tennis: since the Madrid Open in April 2024, every tournament with Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz present has been won by either player. The duopoly continues.Unsurprisingly, Sinner was far more focused on what the victory meant to him. By following his Indian Wells triumph with a title in Miami, he secured one of the greatest achievements of his career in the Sunshine Double
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