Makers of everyday staples from Pampers diapers to Dove soap are walking a fine line by continuing to sell their products in Russia, as pressure grows on multinational companies to take a stand against Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine.
McDonald's said on Tuesday it was closing its restaurants in Russia, including its iconic Pushkin Square location in Moscow. PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Starbucks also stopped sales of their best-known products in Russia.
But the world's biggest makers of packaged food items and household basics have lagged some financial services firms, oil and gas companies and retailers that withdrew entirely from Russia. The consumer products companies argue that everyday people in Russia rely on their products.
Procter & Gamble and Unilever said this week they are continuing to sell essential products in Russia, but are ending any new capital investments and are no longer advertising in the country. Unilever has suspended all imports and exports of products into and out of the country.
On Wednesday, Nestle, the world's largest food group, followed suit, suspending investment in the country after its earlier decision to stop advertising there.
Dairy company Danone is taking a similar approach.
"I give them credit for doing more today than they did yesterday," said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management who is tracking major companies' moves to withdraw from Russia. "The more comprehensive the pullout, the more you’re advancing the prospects of world peace."
Sonnenfeld added that it was a "mistake" to try to minimize the damage to Russian people by continuing to supply basics.
"There's no middle ground," he said.
Cadbury chocolate maker Mondelez International and Kimberly-Clark, which produces Huggies diapers, have yet to announce plans to curtail production in Russia.
“It’s not about pure profits,” said Katie Denis, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group representing companies including P&G and Mondelez. “It’s about, are you going to continue producing things people need? It’s different than what companies who came out earlier are dealing with.”
Worth the risk?
Companies also do not want to be seen as harming regular Russian citizens by putting them out of work.
At least six major fast-food companies – including Yum Brands' KFC and Restaurant Brands International's Burger King – run more than 2,500 restaurants in Russia, mostly through franchisees, and employ tens of thousands more people, according to a Reuters tally that does not include McDonald's.
Yum on Tuesday said it was suspending operations of its 70 KFC company-owned restaurants in the country and finalising an agreement to suspend all Pizza Hut restaurant operations, in partnership with its master franchisee.
But other companies have so far remained silent.
Investors such as the New York State pension fund want companies to consider whether continuing to do business in Russia is worth the risks.
Asset manager Federated Hermes is pressing companies in phone calls and letters to be "open and transparent about what they do in Russia" and share "what decision-making process they've gone through to come up with a conclusion" on working in the country, said Hannah Shoesmith, director of engagement at the firm. Federated Hermes is targeting consumer products companies in its outreach, Shoesmith said.
"We wouldn't ask companies to just leave Russia without asking them to assess the impact on human rights," Shoesmith said. "There's a tradeoff companies have to make. It's not so black and white."
Companies also "should start to think carefully" about their position on taxes paid to the Russian government, Shoesmith said.
"There are attempts to come up with good solutions around paying tax," she said. "If they pay tax in Russia, what are the solutions they can come up with to make up the balance on that?"
Shoesmith said that in prior military coups and refugee crises, companies made payments equivalent to their tax bills to nongovernmental organizations aimed at helping people.
'Corporate suicide'
"There's a big move in our industry to focus on companies with strong corporate governance and ethical standards - and that means societal issues as well," said Jack Martin, investment manager at Oberon Investments, which holds shares in Unilever, Diageo, Burberry Group and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. "It's corporate suicide, really, at the moment, to not pull back from the region."
Joe Sinha, chief marketing officer for Parnassus Investments in San Francisco, said his firm has no direct exposure to Russian companies, but that it is reaching out to the US portfolio companies it owns with more than 2% or so of revenue exposure to Russia to ask for details about their thinking on whether to stay or leave the country.
"We’re not being prescriptive, we’re trying to understand their roles and choices,” Sinha said. While Parnassus is supportive of steps like sanctions that cut off Russian banks and technology firms close to the military, he said, the analysis could be different for food companies that serve consumers.
“For certain goods and services it would harm individual citizens who don’t have anything to do with the regime,” he said. “There are gray areas.”
Home secretary Yvette Cooper has announced plans to rebuild neighbourhood policing and combat surging shop theft as part of an ambitious programme of reform to policing.
In her first major speech at the annual conference hosted by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners on Tuesday, Cooper highlighted four of the key areas for reform: neighbourhood policing, police performance, structures and capabilities, crime prevention.
The initiatives she announced include:
a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee to get policing back to basics and rebuild trust between local forces and the communities they serve
a new Police Performance Unit to track national data on local performance and drive up standards
a new National Centre of Policing to harness new technology and forensics, making sure policing is better equipped to meet the changing nature of crime
The home secretary also announced more than half a billion pounds of additional central government funding for policing next year to support the government’s Safer Streets Mission, including an increase in the core grant for police forces, and extra resources for neighbourhood policing, the NCA and counter-terrorism.
In her speech, Cooper said that without a major overhaul to increase public confidence, the British tradition of policing by consent will be in peril.
“I am determined that neighbourhood policing must be rebuilt,” she said, pointing to its decline over the past decade. Cuts to community-based roles have left town centres vulnerable to rising crime and antisocial behaviour, she added.
“Shop theft is up at a record high, street theft is up 40 per cent in a year… Criminals – often organised gangs – are just getting away with it. We cannot stand for this,” she said.
Cooper reiterated the government’s commitment to deliver an additional 13,000 police officers, PCSOs and special constables in neighbourhood policing roles, adding that further steps will be announced in the coming weeks.
The reforms will restore community patrols with a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee and an enhanced role for Police and Crime Commissioners to prevent crime. The changes will also ensure that policing has the national capabilities it needs to fight fast-changing, complex crimes which cut across police force boundaries.
“The challenge of rebuilding public confidence is a shared one for government and policing. This is an opportunity for a fundamental reset in that relationship, and together we will embark on this roadmap for reform to regain the trust and support of the people we all serve and to reinvigorate the best of policing,” Cooper said.
Retailers are right to warn of potential job cuts as a result of tax increases announced at last month’s budget, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has said.
Bailey appeared before the cross-party Treasury select committee on Tuesday (19), after almost 80 retailers claimed rising costs would make “job losses inevitable, and higher prices a certainty”.
“I think there is a risk here that the reduction in employment could be more. Yes, I think that’s a risk,” Bailey said, adding that depending on how companies respond, there could be a bigger reduction in employment as a result of the NICs rise than the 50,000 jobs projected by the government’s spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
Bailey suggested the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) would continue to reduce interest rates slowly from their current level of 4.75%, allowing time to assess the impact of the tax changes.
Rachel Reeves’s first budget increased taxes by £40bn, which Labour said would be used to fund creaking public services. The biggest revenue-raiser was a £25bn rise in employer national insurance contributions (NICs), which has prompted a backlash from business groups.
In a letter to the chancellor, retail bosses claimed this and other changes would cost the sector £7bn and lead to layoffs. Signatories included senior figures from Tesco, Greggs, H&M, B&Q and Specsavers.
The letter, which was organised by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and signed by 80 companies, warned the industry faces £7bn in increased costs as a result of changes to employers’ National Insurance, a higher minimum wage rise and levies on packaging.
It added that job losses were now “inevitable”, as a result of the “sheer scale” of the new costs on business.
The letter continued: “For any retailer, large or small, it will not be possible to absorb such significant cost increases over such a short timescale. The effect will be to increase inflation, slow pay growth, cause shop closures and reduce jobs, especially at the entry level. This will impact high streets and customers right across the country.”
The BRC estimates that retailers will face a £2.3bn bill from April, after the implementation of the increase in employer NICs from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent, as well as the reduction in the earnings threshold when they must start paying it, from £9,100 to £5,000.
Meanwhile, retailers are understood to have been contacted by the Treasury last week to find out whether they planned on giving their support to the letter, which criticised the Chancellor’s decision to impose extra costs on the industry. One industry source suggested the Government had been thrown into a “tizzy” by the prospect of a public letter rebuking the Chancellor.
The British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) has urged independent shop owners to reach out to their local councils about the government's newly announced High Street Rental Auction (HSRA) powers, which aim to tackle persistently vacant commercial properties on UK high streets.
Introduced through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023, the HSRA legislation will come into force on 2 December. It will give local authorities the ability to put the leases of long-term empty shops up for public auction, allowing businesses and community groups to secure short-term tenancies.
Andrew Goodacre, CEO of Bira, said: "The introduction of High Street Rental Auctions is a positive step forward in revitalising our town and city centres. For far too long, disengaged landlords have been allowed to leave key commercial properties sitting vacant, to the detriment of local businesses and communities."
"We urge all independent shop owners who have experienced issues with persistently empty premises in their area to engage with their local council. These new rental a provides an opportunity for retailers and other organisations to gain access to high street spaces that may have previously been off-limits."
The government has committed over £1 million in funding to support the HSRA process, which aims to breathe new life into town centres by bringing businesses, community services and customers back to the high street.
Goodacre added: "High streets are the beating heart of our local communities, and we cannot allow them to wither away due to landlord inaction. These new rental auction powers give opportunities to established or new retailers to secure affordable, short-term tenancies and expand their reach within their community."
Britain's annual inflation rate jumped more than expected in October to back above the Bank of England's target as households and businesses faced higher energy bills, official data showed Wednesday.
The Consumer Prices Index reached 2.3 per cent from a three-year low of 1.7 percent in the 12 months to September, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement.
CPI was last at 2.3 percent in April, the ONS added in a statement, while analysts' consensus had been for the rate to climb back to 2.2 percent.
The Bank of England (BoE) target stands at 2.0 percent.
"Inflation rose... as the increase in the energy price cap meant higher costs for gas and electricity compared with a fall at the same time last year," ONS chief economist Grant Fitzner said of October's data.
Britain's energy regulator Ofgem sets a price cap quarterly that suppliers can charge customers. The latest increase in October was 10 per cent but this is expected to drop markedly in January according to forecasts.
The regulator had cited rising prices on international energy markets owing to increasing geopolitical tensions, and extreme weather events driving competition for gas, as the reasons behind the sharp rise.
"We know that families across Britain are still struggling with the cost of living," senior Treasury official Darren Jones said in reaction to Wednesday's inflation reading and saying the Labour government needed to do more to help.
Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose by 1.9 per cent in the year to October, up from 1.8 per cent to September 2024. The annual rate of 1.9 per cent in October compares with 10.1 per cent in the same month last year.
Analysts said despite prices rising faster than expected, the BoE remained on course to keep cutting British interest rates.
"But it lends some support... that the Bank will skip the December meeting and cut rates only gradually, by 25 basis points in February and at every other policy meeting until rates reach 3.50 percent in early 2026," forecast Ruth Gregory, deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics research group.
The central bank earlier this month trimmed borrowing costs by 25 basis points to 4.75 per cent.
Following its decision, the BoE added that a maiden budget from Britain's Labour government in October, featuring tax rises and increased borrowing, would boost growth but also lift inflation.
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Nestle logos are pictured in the supermarket of Nestle headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland, February 13, 2020
Nestle on Tuesday said it will increase investment in advertising and marketing to 9 per cent of sales by the end of 2025. The company also announced plans to make its waters and premium beverages activities a global standalone business from New Year.
Unveiling a plan to fuel and accelerate growth at a Capital Markets Day for investors and analysts, the Swiss group also said it aims cost savings of at least CHF 2.5 billion (£2.25bn) above existing initiatives by end 2027 to fund increased investments.
“Our iconic brands and innovative products connect with people every day, at every stage of their lives. These strengths give us a unique advantage and position us to win in the marketplace. We will now invest further in our brands and growth platforms to unlock the full potential of our products for our consumers and our customers,” Laurent Freixe, Nestlé chief executive, commented.
“Our action plan will also improve the way we operate, making us more efficient, responsive and agile. I am confident that we can deliver superior, sustainable and profitable growth and gain market share, while transforming Nestlé for long-term success.”
Nestlé confirmed its 2024 guidance, with organic sales growth of around 2 per cent, underlying trading operating profit margin of around 17 per cent and underlying EPS broadly flat in constant currency. Looking ahead to 2025, the company expects an improvement in organic sales growth compared to 2024, with the underlying trading operating profit margin anticipated to be moderately lower than the 2024 guidance.
Nestle last month lowered its outlook for 2024 to 2 per cent as the company reported falling sales for the first nine months of the year.
The consumer goods major, whose brands range from Nespresso coffee capsules to Purina dog food and Haagen-Dazs ice cream, had already cut its annual sales growth expectations from 4 per cent to 3 per cent in July.
The company on Tuesday said it expects organic growth to be over 4 per cent in the medium term, in a normal operating environment, with an underlying trading operating profit margin of over 17 per cent.
Nestle said the its new action plan will allow it to drive category growth and improve market share performance.
Actions will include targeted investments in winning brands and growth platforms, more focused innovation activities to drive greater impact, and systematically addressing underperformers.
Nestle will step up investment in advertising and marketing to support growth. The necessary resources will be generated through cost savings and growth leverage.
As part of the action plan to drive operational performance, Nestle’s water and premium beverages activities will become a global standalone business under the leadership of Muriel Lienau, head of Nestlé Waters Europe, as of January 1, 2025.
Nestle said the new management will evaluate the strategy for this business, including partnership opportunities.