While announcing the fiscal results Nestlé’s CEO said in a statement that, if the company sees any break of mergers or acquisitions and if it makes “strategic sense” for Nestle, it plans to go for it without hesitation.
“When it comes to M&A, I think Nestle is no stranger to that,” Nestle CEO Ulf Mark Schneider, said.
“In fact some of the most strident deals of the 1980s that actually put the company on the map where it is today, as the world’s largest food and Beverage Company, those were coming from here.”
Mr. Schneider recently this year appointed as Nestle’s CEO, after working as a CEO at Fresenius Group, a health care company that’s gone through many deals during his 13-year tenure.
Considering the health aspect and Schneider’s past work, the CEO revealed Nestle had by this time made a lot of development in advancement of its nutritional profile in food and beverage in the recent times.
But mergers and acquisitions at Nestle has been relatively quiet in recent years, Schneider said the group would look at potential deals “when the time is right.”
“I’m no stranger to deal-making, but I think it’s basically a continuation of what we’ve done before and that is when there are deal opportunities that make strategic sense, we’ll be there.”
In its fiscal results on Thursday, Nestle posted 2016 sales of 89.5 billion Swiss francs or $89.4 billion.
The food and beverage giants’ net profit came in at 8.5 billion Swiss francs that was less than average analyst’s predictions, with the group saying that one major factor which predominantly influenced the figure was a one-off non-cash alteration to deferred taxes.
For the future, Schneider said that the start of 2017 was expected to be harder than the end of the year, especially with the present level of unpredictability perceived across the globe.
