The backlash against Unilever’s effectively aborted bid for GlaxoSmithKline’s consumer healthcare business didn’t merely cut Alan Jope, its boss, down to size. The shares were also pulled lower, as shareholders bristled at the prospect of a jump in leverage and questioned the rationale for the deal.
News that Trian Partners, the activist hedge fund of Nelson Peltz, the billionaire American investor, has taken a stake in the consumer goods group has healed the damage done to the shares by the ill-conceived GSK approach, but they are still 12 per cent lower than they were a year ago.
The March 2020 market crash aside, an enterprise value of 12 times forecast earnings before taxes and other charges this year leaves Unilever at its lowest
