Key facts
- Lindt shares are down about a quarter in 2026 after outlook cuts and weak European performance, Reuters reported.
- Deka's Ingo Speich said renewal should extend to the board and the concentration of power must be abolished.
- Ethos CEO Vincent Kaufmann said only three of the board's eight members were independent by its criteria.
- An anonymous top-20 shareholder said six of the board's eight members were at least 70 years old.
- Tanner holds 2.3% of Lindt shares, and two pension funds he chairs hold more than 15% of voting rights.
- Lindt reaffirmed a medium- to long-term goal of 6% to 8% annual sales growth.
Influential investors in Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli are calling for broad boardroom changes after pricing missteps hurt the share price and led to the ouster of CEO Adalbert Lechner, Reuters reported on November 4, 2026. The criticism rests on interviews with five major investors, including three top-20 shareholders, and adds to pressure on Lindt as it searches for a new CEO. Its shares are down about a quarter in 2026 after outlook cuts and weak performance in Europe.
The shareholders said they wanted the board refreshed and the powers of Chairman Ernst Tanner, 80, curbed. Tanner has been chairman for 32 years and executive chairman since 2016. "Renewal cannot stop at the executive management. It should also happen on the board," said Ingo Speich of Lindt investor Deka, who added that the Swiss firm faced structural challenges requiring "new thinking." Speich also said: "The current concentration of power must be abolished." Of the five investors Reuters spoke to, only one large shareholder backed the current board, and six other major shareholders declined to comment.
The comments mark the first major rebuke of Lindt's board since Lechner's ouster. Tanner has faced opposition before, with some shareholders voting against his reelection at annual meetings in recent years. Lindt said the board had launched the search for a new CEO and expected to appoint a successor in the second quarter of 2027. Lechner could not be reached for comment, and Tanner declined to comment. A Lindt spokesperson said the board reviews its composition regularly and that succession planning is a fixed part of its work.
Lindt ran into difficulties in 2026 after raising prices in response to higher cocoa costs, which hit sales volumes as consumers tightened their belts. Tanner acknowledged that Lindt had misjudged consumers' willingness to pay after raising prices by 19% in 2025 and a further 12% in the first half of 2026. The company cut its organic growth forecast to between 0% and 2%, well below the 10.9% five-year average. Germany head Michal Spiller left alongside Lechner, with former CEO Dieter Weisskopf returning as interim CEO. Spiller could not be reached for comment.
Vincent Kaufmann, CEO of Swiss shareholder advisory group Ethos, said Lindt suffered from a lack of adequate checks and balances on its supervisory board. "The search for a new CEO is a first step ... However, a change of CEO alone will not resolve the governance issues Ethos has raised, which concern the board itself," Kaufmann said, adding that only three of the board's eight members were independent by its criteria and that company pension funds were overrepresented.