30 days left to save Unilever
Crunch vote looms to keep consumer giant in FTSE
INVESTORS have 30 days left to vote on a controversial plan from Unilever that would mean the consumer goods giant leaves the FTSE 100 index.
Battle lines are being drawn in the knife-edge poll – due on October 26 – on its proposals to axe its legal headquarters in London and base itself solely in the Netherlands.
Many investors are furious because the plans would see Unilever, whose brands include Marmite, Dove and PG Tips, kicked out of the FTSE 100. This would force some big City investors to sell their holdings.
Smaller shareholders are being urged to act as, unusually, they have as much weight in the vote as big City institutional funds.
Cliff Weight of lobby group Sharesoc, criticised top management for failing to defuse the row. He said: ‘Investors expect boards to anticipate these issues. Riding roughshod over UK shareholders is unacceptable. It is unacceptable and poor corporate governance.’
Big City funds such as Aviva, Lindsell Train and Columbia Threadneedle have spoken out against the plans. Others, including Legal and General and Blackrock, have not declared a view.
Private investors can scupper Unilever’s plan to shift its HQ to Rotterdam because it needs a majority of voting shareholders to approve, regardless of how large or small their holding.
This means a single investor with a handful of shares has as much power as a large institution. The plans also require the backing of investors holding 75pc of Unilever shares voting for the change to pass.
Unilever’s finance boss Graeme Pitkethly took to national radio to defend the plan on Tuesday and chairman Marijn Dekkers wrote a newspaper article.
The company this week took out full-page adverts in newspapers, including the Daily Mail, to ask shareholders for support, with the message: ‘The proposal is all about positioning shareholders for continued growth.’
Meanwhile, chief executive Paul Polman, who drew up the plans, has been in New York this week attending a United Nations summit on social responsibility for businesses.
While he was there, the UN Global Compact tweeted a picture of him next to Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria chief executive Bola Adesola, former Shell chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, and Lise Kingo, the chief executive of UN Global Compact.
It is understood the policy advisory board to FTSE Russell, which runs the FTSE 100, assembled yesterday for a regular quarterly meeting.
Unilever has said it has engaged extensively with FTSE Russell over being delisted from the index.