Magnum, the world’s largest ice cream maker, made its public debut today with a message for investors: ice cream is not just a summer fling.
Shares of The Magnum Ice Cream Company, newly spun off from Unilever, opened at €12.20 in Amsterdam, valuing the business at roughly €7.9 billion (9.2 billion dollars). That is slightly below analyst expectations. The stock also began trading in London, with a New York listing on the way.
For years, ice cream was Unilever’s least profitable division. The business carried heavy cold-chain costs, tied to more than 3 million freezers worldwide, and demand that rises and falls with the weather. A one-degree temperature change can meaningfully sway short-term forecasts.
Magnum executives argue those challenges do not make the business volatile. They point to a decade and a half of predictable seasonality. Over the past 15 years, more than half of annual sales consistently landed between May and September. From 2019 to 2024, second-quarter revenue growth was actually less volatile than that of several major beverage peers.
The GLP-1 question
Magnum must still navigate a world where Americans are eating less ice cream and GLP-1 drugs are reshaping appetite patterns. The company’s internal modeling suggests rising US GLP-1 adoption would reduce ice cream volumes by only about 0.5 percent at worst.
To stay ahead, the company is prioritizing premiumization. That includes portion-controlled products like Bon Bons and Ben & Jerry’s stick-based treats, as well as higher-protein, lower-calorie lines through brands such as Yasso.
Now that Magnum stands alone, without needing to compete internally with Dove soap, Hellmann’s, or home-care brands, leadership says its growth ambitions are clearer. The company aims to increase revenue 3 to 5 percent annually starting in 2026. CEO Peter ter Kulve credits an operating model built entirely around people who, in his words, “wake up and go to bed only thinking about ice cream.”