Episode
Veteran Analyst Mark Purdy on Nestlé
- Podcast
- Preferred Shares Podcast
- Published
- Mar 20, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3927
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
Welcome to Episode 31 of the Preferred Shares Podcast. In this episode, we continue our short series on Nestlé. We brought back our guest Mark Purdy ( whom we interviewed about Lindt & Sprüngli ) to chat about the company’s more recent history and its current set of challenges and opportunities. Mark is a veteran investment analyst with 40 years of experience with a particular focus on consumer brands. He’s now retired from full-time research and portfolio management, and he has set up Calabria Park Advisors, a boutique consultancy. In This Episode * Setting the Stage: Consumer Staples Under Pressure — Mark frames the last six years for the sector, covering the COVID distortion between in-home and out-of-home consumption, and the wave of inflation that followed. * Nestle’s Perfect Storm: Cocoa & Coffee Costs — Commodity prices hit Nestlé especially hard, with cocoa at one point nearly 5x its pre-spike level, squeezing margins. * CEO Carousel: Three Leaders in 18 Months — The show examines the transition from Paul Bulcke to Mark Schneider to Laurent Freixe and now Philippe Navratil, and how leadership instability can create internal distraction even at a resilient company. * The Case for Insider CEOs in Consumer Staples — Mark argues that the long-cycle nature of brand stewardship favors internal promotions, and why Navratil’s 20-year tenure and track record make him a credible candidate. * Brand Portfolio Sprawl — A discussion of how consumer goods giants naturally accumulate thousands of brands despite every CEO promising “fewer, bigger, better,” and what Nestlé should actually do about it. * M&A Winners and Losers: Ralston Purina vs. Health Science — Mark contrasts Nestlé’s successful acquisitions (Purina, the Starbucks licensing deal) against its costly failures…