ZURICH – Nestle staff complained in May about improper favoritism by former CEO Laurent Freixe towards an employee with whom they alleged he was romantically involved, a senior executive said on Wednesday, two days after Freixe was sacked.

Freixe was fired due to an undisclosed relationship with a subordinate, exactly a year after he replaced Mark Schneider, plunging the Swiss food giant into turmoil.

Chief Financial Officer Anna Manz said the relationship between Freixe and the employee, who has not been named, was first examined in an internal investigation following concerns raised via Nestle’s internal reporting system, called Speak Up.

“Back in May, we received a Speak Up through our internal channels alleging a romantic relationship with an employee and improper favoritism,” Manz told a Barclays investor conference.

The matter was investigated by the board, but no evidence was found, she said.

“And it was at that point that Laurent also made a personal statement stating that there had been no such thing,” Manz said, referring to the concerns about Freixe raised by whistleblowers.

But complaints continued to be made, Manz said, leading to a second, broader inquiry being launched with help from Swiss lawyers Baer & Karrer.

“And it was that that triggered information that led to the board believing that there had been a breach of conduct and that they needed to act to change the CEO,” she said.

Freixe, who had denied the relationship throughout the course of both investigations, was dismissed on Monday following a board meeting, and will not receive an exit package.

He could not be immediately reached for comment.

Investors and analysts have described the dismissal of the 39-year company veteran as a crisis of historic proportions at Nestle, traditionally seen as a pillar of the Swiss business establishment.

‘STRATEGIC, THOUGHTFUL LEADER’
Freixe was replaced by Nespresso boss Philipp Navratil. Manz said he will bring a fresh perspective to the company.

Navratil, 49, has spent 24 years at Nestle, mainly in its coffee business, and joined the executive board in January.

“He’s a really strategic, thoughtful leader. He’s also very pragmatic and executionally focused,” Manz said.

Nestle denied reports Manz’s appearance had been hastily arranged to present the company’s side of Freixe’s sacking to investors. The company said Freixe had also been due to attend the conference with Manz before his dismissal.

The company, famous for KitKat chocolate bars and Nescafe instant coffee, has been struggling since the tenure of Freixe’s predecessor Schneider, the first outsider to lead Nestle since 1922.

Some analysts accused Schneider of focusing too much on acquisitions and cutting spending in vital areas.

Schneider was fired in August 2024 following Nestle’s slow post-pandemic recovery, triggering what has become one of the messiest managerial periods in the 159-year-old company’s history.

Manz said Navratil’s quick appointment was possible because the Nestle board had already begun succession planning due to the fact that Freixe is 63.

Navratil would be present for Nestle’s third-quarter results on October 16, and would likely meet investors before then, Manz said. — Reuters

LONDON/MOSCOW – Eight OPEC+ members will consider further raising oil production at a meeting on Sunday, two sources familiar with the discussions said, as the group seeks to regain market share.

OPEC+ has reversed its strategy of output cuts from April and has already raised quotas by about 2.5 million barrels per day, about 2.4% of world demand, to boost market share and under pressure from US President Donald Trump to lower oil prices.

But those increases have failed to bring down oil prices, which traded near $68 a barrel supported by Western sanctions on Russia and Iran, encouraging further production gains in rivals such as the United States.

Another output boost would mean OPEC+, which pumps about half of the world’s oil, would be starting to unwind a second layer of cuts of about 1.65 million barrels per day, or 1.6% of world demand, more than a year ahead of schedule.

Eight OPEC+ countries are due to hold an online meeting on Sunday expected to decide on October output. OPEC+ includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus Russia and other allies.

There is also a chance, some analysts and an OPEC+ source said, that OPEC+ could pause the increases for October. A final decision has not been made, the OPEC+ source said.

OPEC headquarters and authorities in Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Brent crude was trading near $68 on Wednesday, down over 1% on the day but up from a 2025 low of near $58 in April.

As well as sanctions, the OPEC+ hikes falling short of the pledged amounts have also supported prices, analysts have said.

Until April, OPEC+ had been curtailing production for several years to support oil prices.

At their last meeting in August, the eight members raised production by 547,000 bpd for September, completing a total increase in output for the year of 2.5 mln bpd. That included a 300,000 bpd additional production allocation for the UAE.

The next output cut layer of 1.65 million bpd is in place until the end of 2026, as is another 2 million bpd of cuts by the whole group. — Reuters

USSeveral Federal Reserve officials who spoke on Wednesday said labor market worries continue to animate their belief that rate cuts still lie ahead for the central bank.

“I’ve been clear that I think we should be cutting at the next meeting,” Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said in an interview with CNBC, reiterating the view he has held for some time and led him to dissent at the late July Fed meeting in favor of an easing. “You want to get ahead of having the labor market go down because usually when the labor market turns bad, it turns bad fast,” he said.

He added that a rate cut at the September 16-17 Federal Open Market Committee meeting would not put monetary policy on a pre-set course of lowering borrowing costs and data will drive what the central bank does. But, “I would say over the next three to six months, we could see multiple cuts coming in.”

Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic also reiterated his view that a rate cut is in the cards although he did not say how soon it might happen. He wrote in an essay that “today, I judge policy to be marginally restrictive.” He added, “while price stability remains the primary concern, the labor market is slowing enough that some easing in policy—probably on the order of 25 basis points—will be appropriate over the remainder of this year.”

And in a hometown speech, Minneapolis Fed leader Neel Kashkari said with the neutral fed funds rate around 3%, “that suggests that interest rates have some room to come down gently over the next couple of years.” The official also declined to say when he believes the Fed should cut rates given the uncertainties created by trade policy.

The Fed’s meeting later this month is viewed by investors as a lock for a quarter percentage point cut in what is now a 4.25% to 4.5% federal funds interest rate target range.

The market’s confidence is rooted in comments made by Fed Chair Jerome Powell late last month at the Kansas City Fed’s Jackson Hole, Wyoming research conference when he said, “with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance.”

In weighing a rate cut, Fed officials are trying to balance their legally mandated mission of keeping inflation low and the job market as strong as it can be without creating price pressures.

Many Fed officials, as well as many private sector economists, are concerned inflation is too high and likely to get higher in response to President Donald Trump’s huge increase in import taxes. Kashkari noted because of these factors, “we’re getting into a tricky position” for Fed policy.

The Budget Lab at Yale analysis group in a new report cited mounting evidence that tariffs are boosting goods prices, estimating that “61-80% of the new 2025 tariffs were passed through to consumer core goods prices, roughly in the middle of prior studies around consumer price pass-through.”

Meanwhile, the Fed’s Beige Book anecdotal survey of conditions across the US found tariff-related price increases were pervasive.

“While some firms reported passing through their entire cost increases to customers, some firms in nearly all districts described at least some hesitancy in raising prices, citing customer price sensitivity, lack of pricing power, and fear of losing business,” the Fed report said.

JOB WORRIES
At the same time, a wide range of data indicates the labor market is weakening, and that is driving some at the Fed to focus more on the jobs side of their mandate.

St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem, in an appearance before the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said “I’ve been revising my assessment of downside risks for the labor markets slightly higher as I’ve seen some deterioration in some of the underlying full employment numbers, and I’ve been revising my assessment of the risk of persistent above-target inflation slightly lower, in part because the pass-through so far of tariffs on inflation has been low.”

The officials’ worry about the labor market was to some degree backed up by a government report released on Wednesday that showed moderate hiring and a declining number of job openings. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, showed openings dropped 176,000 to 7.181 million by the last day of July, a lower rate than economists had expected.

Musalem, however, offered few clues about the outlook for rates beyond saying monetary policy is currently in the right place given current economic performance. He also said in his speech he expects some moderate deterioration in the job market, with inflation pressures undergoing a short-run bump from tariffs before easing back to 2% in the latter part of 2026.

Waller, and to some extent Musalem, see tariffs as largely a temporary factor that will pass through the economy and, once done, will allow price pressures to ease back to the target. — Reuters