P&G names veteran Jon Moeller new CEO as it battles higher costs

Moeller will succeed CEO David Taylor, who will take on the role of P&G's executive chairman on Nov. 1

Procter & Gamble Company on Thursday named Chief Operating Officer and long-time executive Jon Moeller head of the consumer products giant, as it battles rising costs.

Moeller will succeed CEO David Taylor, who will take on the role of P&G's executive chairman on Nov. 1. In his 33 years at the company, Moeller has served as chief financial officer and vice chairman among other top roles.

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P&G, seen as a corporate winner of the COVID-19 pandemic as people working from home snapped up national brands of packaged food and cleaning products, has been hit by increasing costs for everything from transport to pulp and resin or edible oils and nuts in recent months.

Shares of the company were about flat for the year to date compared with gains in major indices.

The Cincinnati-based company said in April it would raise prices of some products in the United States to offset the rising costs.

PROCTER & GAMBLE WILL RAISE PRICES IN SEPTEMBER

P&G warned in June that higher freight and commodity costs, amounting to around $600 million after tax, would affect its earnings this year. The company is set to post fourth-quarter and full-year earnings on Friday.

Analysts at brokerage Bernstein warned that the cost picture for P&G has continued to deteriorate over the past few months, and the outlook for fiscal year 2022 is "seriously bleak."

"The big questions for P&G, in our view, lie less around Q4 performance, and more around the guide they give for FY22, which will be the first steer that we get for the cost outlook heading into calendar 2022, and how prolonged this inflationary pain may be. The signs on this front are not great," Bernstein wrote in a note.

Ticker Security Last Change Change %
PG PROCTER & GAMBLE CO. 161.21 -0.17 -0.11%

The company, behind brands such as Gillette, Head & Shoulders, Oral-B and Pampers, is expected to post quarterly revenue of $18.40 billion, marginally higher than a year earlier, according to Refinitiv IBES.

However, analysts' estimates for earnings per share of $1.08 were down 6.6% from a year earlier.

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Shailesh Jejurikar, CEO of P&G's largest business unit named Fabric & Home Care sector, will take over as chief operating officer from Oct. 1, the company said. 

(Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)