LONDON - Unilever unveiled plans on Tuesday to cut about 1,500 management jobs in an overhaul aimed at easing shareholders' concerns after a failed takeover bid and news that an activist investor had built a stake in the consumer goods giant.
The maker of Dove soap and Magnum ice cream, which employs about 149,000 people around the world, said on Tuesday it would organize its business into five new divisions - beauty and wellbeing, personal care, home care, nutrition, and ice cream.
"Our new organizational model has been developed over the last year ... Moving to five category-focused Business Groups will enable us to be more responsive to consumer and channel trends, with crystal-clear accountability for delivery," CEO Alan Jope said.
Unilever, whose shares have fallen about 13 percent over the past year, last week effectively abandoned plans to buy GlaxoSmithKline's consumer healthcare business for 50 billion pounds ($67 billion).
The announcement also comes days after reports that activist investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Partners had been building a stake in the world's second-biggest personal care products maker.
(Reporting by Richa Naidu in London and Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru Editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)