Nestlé, Under Pressure, Plans Buyback and Perhaps Acquisitions.
LONDON — In revealing his investment position in Nestlé on Sunday, the hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb urged the company to consider slimming down, as well as buying back its stock.
Yet Nestlé’s new strategic course came out only two days after Mr. Loeb’s hedge fund, Third Point, emerged as one of the company’s biggest shareholders and presented suggestions aimed at shaking up what Third Point described as a significant underperformer.
The company said its board was prepared to spend up to 20 billion Swiss francs on stock buybacks.
And the conglomerate said it planned to continue to “adjust” its portfolio of operations.
Nestlé announced this month that it was considering a sale of its American candy business, home of Gobstoppers and Butterfinger bars, with the unit in a prolonged sales slump.
Nestlé, however, also emphasized that it was prepared to spend, and potentially spend a lot, to bolster the fast-growing parts of its business.
Such deals would be a higher priority than the stock buybacks: Nestlé said the bulk of its share repurchases would take place in 2019 and 2020 to let the company make takeovers first.
But one of Mr. Loeb’s suggestions — selling off Nestlé’s 23 percent stake in L’Oréal, a cosmetics company — may not find favor among Nestlé’s top managers.
In February, Mr. Schneider described the L’Oréal stake as a “strategic asset” and suggested that any change to it be done carefully.