Life after Laxman looks far less certain for Reckitt Benckiser. The company’s shares fell by 5 per cent on the day Laxman Narasimhan announced his surprise departure as boss of the consumer goods group, the worst one-day fall in six months. Yet that reaction should not be neatly interpreted as a glowing testimony to his tenure; it’s also a recognition of the uncertain medium-term prospects for sales growth and profit margins.
Narasimhan’s predecessor set a low bar to vault. Rakesh Kapoor’s time in the top job was mired by one-off problems, such as a botched Scholl product upgrade, an American investigation into Indivior, Reckitt’s former pharmaceuticals business, and the ill-judged acquisition of Mead Johnson, the American baby formula maker for $17 billion in 2017.
With
