Magnum Ice Cream says Ben & Jerry's board chair not fit to serve

The Magnum Ice Cream Company has concluded that the chair of its Ben & Jerry’s brand no longer “meets the criteria” to serve as a board member after internal investigations, it said in an SEC filing, the latest twist in an ongoing internal feud.

The spat between Magnum and its Ben & Jerry’s unit is heating up as consumer goods conglomerate Unilever prepares for the spinoff undefined of its ice cream division in early December, which has been delayed by a month due to the U.S. government shutdown.

“Following investigations commissioned by the Group and conducted by external advisers, in the opinion of the Group the current chair of the Ben & Jerry’s Board no longer meets the criteria to serve as a member of the Ben & Jerry’s Board,” Magnum said in an SEC filing late on Tuesday. It did not give any details as to the nature of the investigations or name the chair.

It is unclear what action Magnum can take, however, as the Ben & Jerry’s board was set up to operate independently when it was bought by Unilever 25 years ago.

UNILEVER AND BEN & JERRY’S AT ODDS SINCE 2021

Magnum, which will list in Amsterdam on December 8, said it had informed the Ben & Jerry’s board of the investigation and would consider further options, depending on the response.

Both Magnum and Unilever declined to provide further clarity. Ben & Jerry’s board chair Anuradha Mittal could not immediately be reached for comment.

“This is a deliberate attempt to rewrite history and strip the Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board of the legal authority it was guaranteed,” Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen said in a statement.

Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s have been at odds since at least 2021 when the Chubby Hubby ice cream maker said it would stop selling in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Ben & Jerry’s has sued Unilever over alleged attempts to silence it and called the Gaza war a “genocide”, highly unusual for a major U.S. brand.

Co-founders Cohen and Jerry Greenfield sold Ben & Jerry’s to Unilever in 2000, setting up an independent board to protect and defend the brand’s equity and integrity. According to the original agreement, replacing most board members requires a majority vote from the board.

THREAT TO BRAND’S LONG-TERM VALUE

Cohen said Magnum was targeting Mittal and trying to grab power that would ultimately destroy the long-term value of the brand.

He warned last month that the corporate conflict with the parent company would likely become more pronounced once the spin-off is complete, as the brand will account for a larger percentage of Magnum’s business than it did under Unilever.

Reuters could not establish whether Magnum, which plans secondary listings in New York and London, would be able to remove the chair.

Unilever expects Magnum, which had revenues of 4.5 billion euros ($5.25 billion) in the first half of 2025, to command just over one-fifth of the approximately $88 billion global ice cream market and compete with rivals such as Nestle-backed Froneri.

Magnum highlighted potential risk factors once it becomes a standalone business, including the rising use of weight-loss drugs affecting consumer habits, falling ice cream demand, and volatile prices of key raw materials like cocoa and sugar.