Magnum Ice Cream says Ben & Jerry's board chair not fit to serve

By Alexander Marrow

LONDON (Reuters) -The Magnum Ice Cream Company has concluded that the chair of its Ben & Jerry's brand no longer "meets the criteria" to serve as a board member after internal investigations, it said in an SEC filing, the latest twist in an ongoing internal feud.

The Magnum-led ice cream venture, which also incorporates the Wall's and Cornetto brands, is being spun off from consumer goods conglomerate Unilever in an Amsterdam listing now planned for December 8 after a delay of around one month due to the U.S. government shutdown.

"Following investigations commissioned by the Group and conducted by external advisers, in the opinion of the Group the current chair of the Ben & Jerry’s Board no longer meets the criteria to serve as a member of the Ben & Jerry’s Board," Magnum said, without giving any details as to the nature of the investigations or naming the chair. 

MAGNUM WAITING FOR BEN & JERRY'S BOARD RESPONSE

Unilever and Ben & Jerry's have been at odds since at least 2021 when the Chubby Hubby ice cream maker said it would stop selling in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Ben & Jerry's has sued Unilever over alleged attempts to silence it and called the Gaza war a "genocide", highly unusual for a major U.S. brand.

Magnum said in its SEC filing published late on Tuesday that it had informed the Ben & Jerry's board of the internal investigations' results and would consider further options depending on the response it receives. 

Both Magnum and Unilever declined to provide further clarity. Ben & Jerry's board chair Anuradha Mittal could not immediately be reached for comment.

Co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield sold Ben & Jerry's to Unilever in 2000, setting up an independent board to protect and defend the brand's equity and integrity. According to the original agreement, replacing most board members requires a majority vote from the board.

Reuters could not establish whether Magnum, which plans secondary listings in New York and London, would be able to remove the chair.

MAGNUM SEEKS ONE-FIFTH OF $88 BLN GLOBAL ICE CREAM MARKET

Cohen warned last month that the corporate conflict with the parent company would likely become more pronounced once the spin-off is complete, as the brand will account for a larger percentage of Magnum's business than it did under Unilever.

Unilever expects Magnum, which had revenues of 4.5 billion euros ($5.25 billion) in the first half of 2025, to command just over one-fifth of the approximately $88 billion global ice cream market and compete with rivals such as Nestle-backed Froneri.

Magnum highlighted potential risk factors once it becomes a standalone business, including the rising use of weight-loss drugs affecting consumer habits, falling ice cream demand, and volatile prices of key raw materials like cocoa and sugar. 

($1 = 0.8575 euros)

(Reporting by Alexander Marrow, editing by Lisa Jucca, Conor Humphries and Mark Heinrich)