Nestlé: What is the new CEO serving up?

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  Wolfgang Hagl
  Redaktor

Whether in Switzerland, the eurozone or the USA, consumer confidence is currently not good in many regions. Customs disputes, tense geopolitics, an uncertain economic outlook and inflation, which is still rampant in some cases, are weighing on consumer sentiment. This environment is anything but favorable for Nestlé. However, the world’s largest food company is not only feeling the effects of many consumers’ reticence on supermarket shelves. The industry giant based on Lake Geneva has also lost a lot of trust among investors. CEO Laurant Freixe stumbled over an “undisclosed romantic relationship” and was replaced by the previous Nespresso boss Philipp Navratil at the beginning of September. On October 1, Paul Bulcke took his hat off earlier than planned. The Nestlé veteran was replaced by Pablo Isla as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Important occasion

While this castling is unlikely to have any impact on global consumer sentiment, investors appear to be regaining confidence. In any case, Nestlé shares have recently turned upwards. Apparently, investors trust the home-grown coffee specialist Navratil together with the former fashion manager Isla, the Spaniard who successfully led the Zara parent company Inditex for 17 years, to turn things around. Tomorrow could go some way towards revealing the menu with which the new management duo intends to make analysts’ and investors’ mouths water. On Thursday morning, Nestlé will publish its sales figures for the third quarter of 2025 at 7.00 a.m. From 9.30 a.m., the new CEO and his colleague responsible for finance, Anna Manz, will answer questions from the Group’s stock market target group during a call.

According to a consensus compiled by the company itself, analysts expect growth to accelerate. On average, 19 research firms are forecasting organic sales growth of 3.7% for the third quarter. Of this, 3.4% is expected to be attributable to price increases, while the experts also believe that the industry giant will see a small increase in volume. In the period from April to June 2025, Nestlé only grew organically by 3.0% due to higher prices. Sales volumes declined, primarily due to the weakness in China. CEO Laurent Freixe nevertheless maintained the outlook. He wanted to improve organic growth compared to 2024, when Nestlé made progress by 2.2%, and also held out the prospect of an operating margin of at least 16.0%.

L’Oréal package in focus

As one of his final decisions, Freixe announced a review of the vitamins, minerals and nutritional supplements business. According to a Bloomberg report, Morgan Stanley was commissioned in September to work out options, including a sale of the division. The division could be worth around USD 4 billion. In addition to this topic, the stake in L’Oréal is also likely to be discussed during the call with analysts and investors. Nestlé holds a good fifth of the French cosmetics manufacturer. With the sale of the package, which is worth the equivalent of around CHF 37 billion, the new Group management could pay off debt, buy back shares or invest massively in the realignment of Nestlé.

Investment Solution

Just the slightest hint in this direction would probably give the SMI heavyweight a strong boost. In general, there is a good chance that the food giant will increase its appetite for its own shares tomorrow. From a technical perspective, the large cap recently managed to break above the 55-day line following a double bottom at CHF 71. Nestlé is now facing horizontal resistance in the CHF 76 area. A further CHF 2 higher, Vontobel has set the strike for the new call warrant WNEAUV fixed. With this warrant, traders can bet that Philipp Navratil and Pablo Isla will serve up a good meal and the Nestlé share will gain further ground. But beware: if the duo’s plans are not to investors’ liking, the warrant, which is quoted out of the money, could suffer disproportionately high losses.