London fight for £15bn Unilever ice-cream float: Radical shake-up for consumer goods giant

The stock market has a fight on its hands to win a £15billion listing for Unilever’s ice-cream business.

The consumer goods giant yesterday announced a radical shake-up that will see it spin off the unit in a move that will cost 7,500 jobs worldwide.

The demerger of household names like Ben & Jerry’s, Wall’s and Magnum was cheered by investors who had been waiting to see what boss Hein Schumacher would do to revive Britain’s fourth largest company.

But it has also fired the starting gun on where the business – which last year had sales of £7billion – might choose to float.

London would be a natural home for the standalone company as it is where Unilever is listed and it is the birthplace of Wall’s, which started in an Acton factory in 1922. But New York or Amsterdam could be chosen instead.

Schumacher said he was ‘open to options’ to where the new business would list, sparking fears London may miss out.

It would be a highly-sought out listing for the City, with sweet-talking expected from Chancellor Jeremy Hunt or his potential Labour successor Rachel Reeves. 

A battle is expected for the listing with a decision to be taken over the next 18 months.

Unilever makes a large proportion of its ice-cream sales in the US while its headquarters is in the Netherlands.

Many believe Amsterdam could be the frontrunner due to commitments made with the Dutch government in recent years. In 2020 Unilever went ahead with plans to simplify its structure and chose the UK as its official base. 

But at the time the Dutch government ‘asked for reassurance that if Unilever should ever choose to list the foods and refreshment division as an independent company, it would be incorporated and listed in The Netherlands’. In 2022, the division was split into two parts, nutrition and ice cream.

The City welcomed the unexpected update, with shares rising 3.1 per cent, or 117.5p, to 3929p.

But it leaves 6,000 UK workers in the lurch. They will have to wait for more details about a jobs cull across its 128,000-strong global workforce.

Yesterday, Schumacher, who took over from Alan Jope in July, said the split-off was the next step of his strategy to ‘do fewer things, better’. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.

Investors who have despaired at Unilever’s woke agenda for many years were pleased to see it focus on its bottom line. 

Its tenth biggest shareholder, Terry Smith, gave the plan a thumbs up and said it sounded ‘generally positive’. Job cuts would address ‘overmanning’ issues, he said.

And it was also praised by businessman and investor Nelson Peltz who told the Daily Mail it was an ‘excellent and logical decision by the board.’