RESPECTED City investor Terry Smith launched another excoriating assault on Unilever yesterday, a year after his infamous criticism of its focus on the purpose of its flagship brand Hellman's.

In his annual letter to shareholders, the Fundsmith chief yesterday listed a series of complaints about the consumer goods firm, saying it had failed to engage shareholders, had been opaque about transaction costs and allowed investors to "measure annual growth if you could only count to three".

Smith also says the firm has "asked [investors] to suspend disbelief" that the arrival of notorious activist Trian Partners' investor Nelson Peltz on the board had nothing to do with the September departure of embattled CEO Alan Jope.

"This explanation sounds like it was lifted from the script of Miracle on 34th Street,"

Smith writes.

Smith, who was City A.M.s investor of the year in 2022, goes on to say that Unilever did not make contact with Fundsmith - "about the 12th largest investor" - for the first eight years of their holding. When they eventually did, his "points about what we saw with the performance of the business and the focus of the management" were "duly ignored".

Last year the investor made headlines when he attacked Unilever's focus on so-called ESG metrics.

"A company which feels it has to define the purpose of Hellmann's mayonnaise has in our view clearly lost the plot. The Hellmann's brand has existed since 1913 so we would guess that by now consumers have figured out its purpose (spoiler alert - salads and sandwiches)," he wrote in 2022.

Unilever declined to comment last night. £ CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 In his usual unforgiving style, Smith went on to criticise Unilever's "virtue signalling".

"Among the outpouring of comments last year were a number of apologists for Unilever who were at pains to point out that the Hellmann's brand has been growing revenues well and this was proof that 'purpose' works," Smith wrote, which he said "confuses correlation with cause and effect".

"To further illustrate the point, this year we are moving on to soap," he continued.

"When I last checked it was for washing. However, apparently that is not the purpose of Lux, the Unilever brand, which apparently is all about 'Inspiring women to rise above everyday sexist judgements and express their beauty and femininity unapologetically'."

"I am not making this up... I will leave you to draw your own conclusions about the utility of this."

Smith did, however, say he would keep his holding in the firm.

(c) 2023 City A.M., source Newspaper