Nestle Hits 2008 Highs After CEO Clicks “Select All -> Delete” on Payroll (16k Employees GONE)

“You look like you’re panicking.” -Nestle HR

“Now I am! I’m panicking! Because I’m gonna lose my job!” -every single person inside Nestle headquarters

Philipp Navratil kicked off his first all-hands at Nestle like a game show host: “Welcome to Who Wants to Keep Their Job?!”

Spoiler: 16,000 didn’t make it to the bonus round.

Shares of the Swiss food conglomerate rocketed nearly 9% after new CEO Philipp Navratil (aka “Mr. Nespresso”) announced he’s cutting 16,000 jobs (or about 6% of Nestle’s workforce) to “improve efficiency” and “accelerate the turnaround.” Translation: fewer people, fatter margins, and fewer meetings where someone says “let’s circle back.”

(Source: Reuters)

Navratil, who inherited the throne after former CEO Laurent Freixe got hard-launched out of HQ for allegedly turning the executive suite into a dating app, said Nestle needs to “change faster.” Which is quite the statement coming from a company that’s been selling the same dehydrated milk powder since the Ottoman Empire fell.

But credit where it’s due… the man came in with a plan. Nestle hiked its cost-savings target from $2.8 billion to $4 billion by 2027 and delivered 4.3% organic growth last quarter. Even the elusive “Real Internal Growth” (aka the sales-volume stat analysts worship) finally turned positive… up 1.5% after a long slump.

That was enough to send Nestle’s stock soaring the most since 2008, launching Europe’s entire food sector (+3.3%) along with it. Clearly, firing people is bullish now… and Wall Street just keeps proving that human empathy is bad for margins.

Under Navratil’s watch, 12,000 of the cuts will hit white-collar workers (sorry, middle management), and 4,000 more will come from manufacturing and supply chain roles. He said Nestle will be “ruthless in assessing our people.” And what do you know? just like that, employees started showing up to work on time.

The new boss also confirmed that Nestle’s problem child businesses (water, vitamins, and underperforming Chinese units) are all “under evaluation,” which is HR-approved language for “Craig in M&A, grab the shovel.”

Meanwhile, analysts are already lining up to give Philipp his flowers. Kepler Cheuvreux said Nestle has “turned the corner,” while RBC praised Navratil’s “ambition to foster a culture that doesn’t accept losing market share.”

(Source: CNN)

Bottom line: Navratil’s first act as CEO is basically saying, “If you’re not making me money, you’re making me mad.” Investors seem to love it. Workers, not so much. Somewhere in Switzerland, the ghost of Henri Nestle is looking down like, “Damn, bro, I just wanted to sell milk.”

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.