Unilever is taking its ice cream division public by the end of the year under the name The Magnum Ice Cream Company. Meanwhile, the company is once again at odds with activist brand Ben & Jerry’s.
‘Extremely successful brand’
The name was chosen because Magnum is an ‘extremely successful and loved’ brand, according to top executive Peter ter Kulve, writes the FD. Ben & Jerry’s, Cornetto and Ola are also part of the ice cream division that accounted for 8.3 billion euros in sales last year. Unilever is taking the company public separately because ice cream is a complex business with high costs. The multinational wants to focus on its strongest brands.
Meanwhile, tensions between the parent company and Ben & Jerry’s are escalating again. Unilever allegedly unfairly fired CEO David Stever because of his political activism. The ice cream brand has now officially filed a complaint in a US court. Indeed, when it was acquired by Unilever in 2000, Ben & Jerry’s was given an independent board to decide autonomously on the application of the company’s social mission. That agreement is now said to have been violated.
Last month, rumours surfaced that founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield would like to buy ‘their’ brand back from Unilever, but the brand is not for sale, according to the multinational.
