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Unilever is leaning towards a dual or even triple listing of its ice cream business, with Amsterdam likely to be one venue for the float alongside London or New York, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company is planning to spin off its €15bn ice cream division which includes brands such as Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s, with a decision set to be announced on the listing venue by the end of March.
London-listed Unilever is still in the process of weighing up a number of factors that would influence its choice, people familiar with the process said, and the outcome could change.
However, the Netherlands is likely to feature as one market for the listing, some of the people said, an outcome that could cause consternation in London where the group is headquartered.
Nelson Peltz, the activist investor and Unilever board member, has advocated for a US listing, some of the people said. A representative for Peltz’s Trian Fund Management declined to comment. Unilever declined to comment.
A number of UK-listed businesses have in recent years moved their listing to the US, attracted by higher valuations and greater trading liquidity. Unilever, however, will remain under pressure to keep a presence in its original home markets of the UK and the Netherlands.
In particular, the company in 2020 gave assurances to the Dutch government that any future spin-offs from its foods and refreshment division would be listed in the Netherlands as part of a plan to combine its dual Anglo-Dutch corporate structure into a single London-based entity.
Last October, Unilever moved the headquarters of its ice cream division from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. One executive at the company said that internally the Netherlands was seen as a natural fit for a listing given the location of its headquarters, and that the ice cream unit’s new chief executive, Peter ter Kulve, is Dutch.
At Unilever’s capital markets day in November, finance chief Fernando Fernandez said he would provide the market with details in the first quarter of 2025, and that the division would become a standalone business by July 1, with a full separation complete by the end of the year.
The company had previously shelved plans to run a sale process intended to find a private equity buyer and focus on a push for a spin-off, the Financial Times reported.
Unilever is in the process of a wide-ranging restructure, which includes the spin-off of ice cream, job cuts and the sale of a string of underperforming brands, including small and local food brands amounting to £1bn in sales revenue.
Additional reporting by James Fontanella-Khan in New York
