I love the British press. With effortless wit and aplomb it regularly publishes articles with eye-catching titles like these from The Telegraph: “Unilever’s empire-building ambitions expose the empty rhetoric of its woke ideology” and “Investment star Terry Smith attacks Unilever for ‘ludicrous’ focus on social and green issues.” It is accompanied by a photo of Mr. Smith’s bearded and scowling visage in a natty blue tie with yellow stripes. Ah, what a gift for words! And I must admit to some envy as it highlights the pedestrian nature of my prose.

(Photo by: Dukas/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

What is going on here? Unilever has gotten a lot of press coverage over the past month. For those not following this corporate drama here is a summary of the plot to date. From what I can glean, it appears that Unilever had some preliminary, confidential discussions in December with GSK regarding the purchase of their Consumer Health business. This got leaked to the press. Unilever would obviously have no reason to do so. GSK is itself under the scrutiny of activist investor Elliott Advisors, which I’ve written about on this column. GSK’s choices are an IPO or sale to a strategic buyer. One can only speculate about the sources of the leak, and I will not. Whatever the case, Unilever was, as the English say, “back footed” by this announcement, and lost the opportunity to present fully its strategic rationale for its bid at the time it became known.

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