COMPARED with most documents bearing a corporate letterhead, Nelson Peltz’s 37-page argument for the break-up of PepsiCo, published on February 20th, is a good read. The drinks and snacks firm has “lost its entrepreneurial spirit” and is “shifting to a plodding, ‘big company’ mentality”, it claims. Its managers “may fundamentally misunderstand the business”. The answer is to spin off PepsiCo’s successful snacks division, Frito-Lay, from its battered beverages business. Each would recapture its competitive zeal and gain the freedom to act on it. It is a refreshing change from PepsiCo’s blather about driving choice in the “macro-snack universe”.
