Following the anticipated acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS, Nestle will review its banking arrangements, according to Chief Executive Mark Schneider of the food company on Tuesday.
In an interview that will air on Tuesday night, Schneider revealed that Credit Suisse had been working with the largest food company in the world after the failure of Switzerland’s second-largest bank.
Schneider told the BBC, “We have cooperated closely with Credit Suisse for many years in a spirit of trust.
Such an illustration demonstrates the intimate ties between Switzerland as a financial center and a business hub. We must now determine how to restructure our banking ties with Swiss and foreign service providers.
Schneider said that the Swiss government’s, central bank’s, and market regulator’s intervention to create a merger with UBS had stabilized the situation and restored confidence.
While Schneider acknowledged that Nestle had a strong start to 2023, he also noted that additional price increases will likely be necessary to balance the rising of raw material costs.
The manufacturer of KitKat chocolate bars and Nescafe instant coffee hiked prices by 8.2% last year, but this could not completely offset the effect of rising ingredient costs on margins.
According to Schneider, price hikes have so far only had a “very limited” effect on consumer spending.
He added that prices had to go through a change as long as inflation persisted and negatively impacted their profitability.
Schneider remarked that they wouldn’t be the ones to set prices. Instead, they would keep acting responsibly in that regard. He also said that they were not the ones who were feeding the inflation, but they reacted to it.
A full-year underlying trading operating profit margin target of between 17% and 17.5% was also being worked on by the food manufacturer, Schneider noted.
