Paris (AFP)

The sling of shareholders who consider Danone not profitable enough finally got the better of Emmanuel Faber: the boss of the French flagship of the food industry was ousted with immediate effect, the group announced on Monday.

Known for defending a capitalism freed from short-termism, greener and more social, Emmanuel Faber had become the target in recent months of investment funds which made him responsible for performances deemed worse than those of competitors such as Nestlé or Unilever.

His departure was recorded by the board of directors, of which Gilles Schnepp, historic former boss of the manufacturer of electrical equipment Legrand, will take the presidency, detailed Danone Monday in his press release.

And while waiting to find a new general manager "of international stature", an interim duo has been appointed "to ensure the continuity of the operational": it is composed of a general manager, Véronique Penchienati-Bosetta, and of a deputy managing director, Shane Grant.

The announcement made the Danone share jump by around 5% Monday morning on the Paris Stock Exchange.

Mr. Faber, 57, had been managing director since 2014 and was promoted to CEO in 2017. However, he lost full powers in early March, when the board decided to separate the positions of chairman and managing director.

A pledge granted to two rebel shareholders, the investment funds Artisan Partners and Bluebell Capital, which recently entered the capital thanks to the drop in the share.

It was then decided to keep Emmanuel Faber as Chairman of the Board of Directors, that is to say to let him control the strategic orientations, and to look for a new CEO, without a date being however fixed - in the meantime, Emmanuel Faber continued to provide general management.

Two days later, Artisan Partners, who was campaigning for his outright departure, said "strongly that the board reconsider its position".

- Union support -

Artisan, Danone's third shareholder with around 3% of the capital, called for the appointment "immediately" of a "truly independent" chairman.

He and Bluebell felt that, under the leadership of Emmanuel Faber, Danone had declined compared to its main competitors.

They also demanded that the reorganization and cost reduction plan launched by Emmanuel Faber be at least suspended.

Called "Local First", this plan, currently being negotiated with the unions, aims according to the outgoing management to make Danone more "agile" and generate savings by removing hierarchical layers.

Up to 2,000 job cuts are planned.

Worried about seeing investment funds dictate the group's strategy, several group unions (CFDT, FO and CGC) had given their support to the current governance in early March.

"Me, whether it is Machin, Tartempion or Bidule who manages the company, from the moment they apply the same policy that we have today, that suits us well. It is not the man that we defend, it's governance, "Bruno Largillière, CFDT coordinator at Danone, told AFP, while specifying that he would prefer Mr. Faber to remain in place.

"We would not understand at all that it is called into question to bring more profit to the shareholders who arrive today, weigh only 3% and come to revolutionize the company", he added.

In 2020, the turnover of the French agri-food giant fell by 6.6% to 23.6 billion euros, a shortfall of around 1.7 billion compared to 2019. Emmanuel Faber had promised a "return to growth from the second quarter" 2021, on the occasion of the presentation of results in February.

Also heckled by the Covid-19 crisis and its consequences on consumption, its competitor Unilever for its part succeeded in limiting the decline in its sales to 2.4% last year.

© 2021 AFP