Terry Smith sells Magnum stake weeks after Unilever salvo
Star stockpicker Terry Smith has offloaded his entire holding in Unilever spin-off Magnum Ice Cream just weeks after exiting his stake in its former parent company, which he accused of abandoning the priorities of its long-term investors.
Smith, the feted fund manager who runs the £12.7bn Fundsmith Equity Fund, dumped his stake in Amsterdam-listed Magnum in May, the firm said in its latest factsheet, less than six months on from the demerged entity’s public debut in December.
The investor’s move represents another blow to the Ben & Jerry’s owner, which has endured a mixed start to life as a standalone company since Unilever spun it off as part of a major strategic overhaul. The group, which also counts Cornetto and Wall’s in its stable of brands, recently became the most shorted stock in Europe despite it entering what is traditionally its strongest sales period of the year.
It has also already attracted a wave of interest from buyout giants Blackstone and CD&R, which are reportedly circling the demerged company after its IPO price came in substantially below analyst expectations. The interest has helped to prop up the firm’s shares, which have risen by some 38 per cent since news of the dealmakers’ interest, initially reported by Reuters, first emerged. Magnum is now trading up 7% on its IPO price.
Unilever first announced its intention to spin-off its ice cream division in 2024, as part of a root and branch reorganisation that sought to offload its underperforming divisions and double down on a hand-picked selection of more profitable ‘power brands‘.
As part of the same shake-up, the Dove maker merged its food division with spice giant McCormick in April, in a $45bn (£34bn) megadeal orchestrated by notorious activist investor Nelson Peltz. But the merger, one of the largest in London stock market history, sparked fury among a cohort of Unilever’s longer standing investors who were caught off-guard by the tie-up and will be forced to inherit a 65 per cent of the newly merged entity.
Terry Smith blasts Unilever for ‘abandoning operational focus’
McCormick, which owns brands like French’s mustard and Schwarz seasoning, lent heavily on lenders to fund the multi-billion-pound deal, loading the new company with a net debt-to-earnings ratio of nearly four to one. Unilever also used new listing rules to bypass a shareholder vote on the terms of the merger, amplifying investor concerns.
The flurry of deals prompted Terry Smith – at one point a top 10 shareholder in Unilever – to dump his entire stake in the consumer goods giant worth hundreds of millions of pounds in April. And in a withering parting shot, first reported by CityAM, the fund manager laid into the FTSE 100 firm for having “abandoned its promised operational focus in favour of activist-driven break-ups”.
The break-up included “transferring its food business to McCormick”, Smith added, “whose management and returns we do not rate highly – and in a structure which means we don’t get to vote on it”.
In choosing also to offload his Magnum shares, which Fundsmith inherited from last year’s spin-off, the billionaire investor has now severed its last remaining ties with Unilever, a company his fund had owned for more than 15 years.
As part of the same factsheet, the stockpicker also revealed a decision to exit his fund’s positions in New York-listed elevator maker Otis and animal drugmaker Zoetis.
The investment house is funnelling the returns from those investments into a new position, which it said it would not name until it has “accumulated [its] desired weighting”.
Magnum Ice Cream Company was approached for comment. Fundsmith declined to comment.