News activist investor Third Point has taken a multi-billion dollar stake in Nestlé to try to force the Swiss consumer goods group to be more aggressive is well covered in the papers.

Daniel Loeb has taken aim at Nestlé, accusing it of being staid, bloated with non-essential assets and under-performing. The investment in the Swiss company is the biggest position taken by Third Point in a gamble that it can bring about changes. (The Times £)

Shares in Nestlé closed up 4% on Monday — their biggest one-day increase since 2011 — as investors welcomed the possibility of change. The world’s largest food and drinks company reacted coolly to the fund’s arrival, however, saying: “As always, we keep an open dialogue with all of our shareholders.” (The Financial Times £)

Loeb’s hedge fund, has said that it owns 40m shares, or around 1.3% of the maker of Cheerios to Nescafe, and will now use its position to push for changes at the “staid” global food giant. (The Telegraph)

People close to the situation told the FT that Loeb’s stake is a constructive position — but he hasn’t ruled out asking for changes to the board. They also said that Loeb and one of his partners met with Nestlé chief executive Mark Schneider — who took over in January — before Third Point disclosed its position and his reaction to their concerns was “polite”. Loeb is said to want Nestlé to be “decisive and ambitious” rather than “glacial” and “slow-moving”, these people said. (The Financial Times £)

Its timing is interesting, to say the least, writes Sky News. Nestle has only recently appointed a new chief executive, Mark Schneider, who has already announced plans to sell the company’s US confectionery arm and made clear his intention to cut costs. “Yet Nestle is a super-tanker of a company and it may prove a tough nut to crack.” (Sky News)

Looking at Loeb, The Telegraph writes: “Loeb, who named his $18bn hedge fund Third Point after the break at Surfrider Beach in Malibu, California, has built his reputation - and fortune - on his “poison pen” letters to the bosses of sleepy corporate beasts.” (The Telegraph)

The FT’s Lex column also looks at the effect of the Nestle news on L’’Oréal, in which it owns a significant stake. “Normally, the threat of the sale of a fifth of a company’s shares should cause the price to fall. Yet shares in L’Oréal, the French cosmetics company, have risen almost 4 per cent on just such a threat… One reason for the counter-intuitive market response may be the hope that L’Oréal itself will buy the stock.” (The Financial Times £)

The FT’s Lex column also seeks to calm investor jitters about the prospects of traditional grocers post-Amazon’s successful bid for Whole Foods. “Catastrophists believe Amazon is coming to kill the category that is UK grocery. This may be the intention of the online retailing juggernaut, which launched a full same-day groceries deliveries service in the UK last year. It would probably fail. Excellence in one sphere does not guarantee success in another.” (The Financial Times £)

Asda has been named as the worst of the UK’s major supermarkets in its treatment of suppliers. It dropped below Morrisons, which was bottom of the list last year, as the Bradford-based chain took action to improve its performance according to a survey of more than 1,200 grocery suppliers by the industry watchdog. (The Guardian)

The sale of the Co-operative Bank has been scrapped as bailout talks with the troubled lender’s backers intensify. The hedge funds that own 80% of the bank are in talks with the Co-operative Group, the minority shareholder, over splitting the Co-op Group’s pension scheme, which had proved an obstacle for the bank’s sale (The Times £). Co-op Bank was forced to put itself on the market in February after it was unable to reach a strong enough footing to satisfy Bank of England regulations (The BBC). Anchorage Capital Group, a giant hedge fund, is joining a consortium of Wall Street financiers seeking to finalise a near-£700m rescue of the Co-operative Bank (Sky News)

More than a third of foreign workers and nearly half of skilled staff from the European Union are considering leaving Britain, in a survey marking the latest evidence that Brexit risks sparking a “brain drain” that could damage the economy (The Times £). A third of non-British workers in the UK - 1.2 million people - could leave the country over the next five years, according to a report warning of a possible post-Brexit brain drain (Sky News).

Consumer confidence slumped in the 12 days after the general election to its lowest level since the aftermath of last year’s Brexit vote, as households were unnerved by the impact of a hung parliament (The Guardian). Consumer confidence plunged in the wake of the General Election to its lowest level since the aftermath of the Brexit vote, new figures show (Sky News)

Writing on yesterday’s £1.8bn deal to buy Holland & Barrett, The Daily Mail looks at the ultimate buyer, Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman. “The swoop is Fridman’s latest effort to leave his Russian past behind and take his place in British society… Fridman is also known for his public tussle with BP over their jointly held Russian oil producer TNK-BP which he owned alongside tycoons Len Blavatnik and Viktor Vekselberg.” (The Daily Mail)

Two of Britain’s leading independent tea sellers are to join forces as the demand for organic and speciality tea continues to grow. As exclusively revealed by The Grocer, English Tea Shop is to buy Joe’s Tea Company, a premium organic whole-leaf tea brand that is based in east London and has gained a loyal following of drinkers looking for a “true British brew”. (The Times £)

The Groceries Code Adjudicator has been operating without a compliance manager since December, raising questions about how seriously the government takes the supermarket industry watchdog. (The Times £)

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