# Veteran Analyst Mark Purdy on Nestlé

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/preferred-shares-podcast-6594967/veteran-analyst-mark-purdy-on-nestl
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/preferred-shares-podcast-6594967/veteran-analyst-mark-purdy-on-nestl.md
Podcast: [Preferred Shares Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/preferred-shares-podcast-6594967)
Published: 2026-03-20T11:14:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.preferredsharespodcast.com/p/veteran-analyst-mark-purdy-on-nestle
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/190793269/073439a1e1584ab4fcc45c980787d9f5.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/preferred-shares-podcast-6594967/episodes/veteran-analyst-mark-purdy-on-nestl
Duration seconds: 3927

## Resource

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…

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## Transcript

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