LONDON, Nestlé investors are pressing chairman Paul Bulcke to resign following the departure of a second chief executive in just over a year, the Financial Times (FT) reported.
Shareholders told FT that the dismissal of former chief executive Laurent Freixe — and the handling of investigations into his conduct — deepened their concerns about governance at the Swiss food giant and raised doubts over Bulcke’s leadership.
“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 Nestlé’s founding family investors, told FT. Nestlé did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Freixe was dismissed in early September for failing to disclose a romantic relationship with a subordinate. His removal came a year after predecessor Schneider’s sudden departure and just months after Bulcke announced plans to step down in 2026.
Schneider, who joined in 2017 as only the second outsider to lead Nestlé, spearheaded acquisitions and pushed for higher-margin products. However, he reportedly clashed with the group’s consensus-driven culture as growth slowed, prompting his exit.
A Nestlé spokesperson told FT that the departures of Freixe and Schneider were unrelated, and that Freixe’s actions amounted to a clear breach of the company’s code of conduct.
Bulcke, a 70-year-old Belgian-Swiss, has been chairman since 2017 after serving as chief executive from 2008 to 2016. However, investor confidence has waned amid doubts about Nestlé’s post-pandemic recovery. Sales volumes fell in 2023 as the company raised prices to counter rising input costs. In April, Bulcke was re-elected with 84.8% shareholder support — down from nearly 96% when he first secured the role in 2017.
