Marks & Spencer’s executive director of customer, marketing and M&S.com, Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne, announced on his own Twitter feed yesterday that he was leaving next month, jumping the gun on the official stock exchange announcement from his employeer, reports The Times (£). His job will be axed “as part of a massive shake-up to give more power to the bosses of the two sides of the business – food, and clothing and home”, says The Daily Mail. The newspaper says newly hired managing directors Stuart Machin and Jill McDonald will be in charge of their own design schemes, customer loyalty programmes and advertising programmes. It says senior marketer Rob Weston is also leaving. It notes that Bousquet-Chavanne will get up to £2m after he leaves. The Guardian notes that Bousquet-Chavanne, oversaw the successful Mrs Claus Christmas ad and last year’s Paddington commercial.

Unilever has quietly set up meetings with UK-based shareholders in a bid to confront the mounting rebellion among some of its largest investors against abandoning the UK and establishing its base in the Netherlands Financial Times (£). Reuters says the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant this morning reported underlying sales up 3.4% in the first quarter. Reported turnover fell 5.2% to €12.6bn (£11bn), hurt by currency exchange rates.

Pernod Ricard enjoyed a 9.3% uplift in organic revenue in the first quarter, which was also ahead of analysts’ expectations – of 6.5% growth Bloomberg. China’s growing demand for spirts proved a major benefit to the maker of Chivas Regal and Jameson. Pernod Ricard is targeting acquisitions of American whiskeys.

UK Prime minister Theresa May has announced plans to ban the sale of single-used plastic drinking straws and cotton buds later this year and will urge the former British colonies to follow suit at a meeting of Commonwealth leaders in London Bloomberg. Sky News says the ban is subject to a consultation which will be launched later this year.

Amazon Prime has accrued more than 100m paid members, chief executive Jeff Bezos wrote in an annual letter to shareholders yesterday, reports the Financial Times (£). He outlined 16 bullet points of “recent milestones” for the company, ranging from music and fashion to groceries and cloud computing. Bezos said Amazon shipped more than 5bn items with Prime worldwide last year The Daily Telegraph.

Danone, which specialises in fresh dairy and baby food reported organic growth of almost 5% in the first quarter on the same period the year before Financial Times (£). The French group said demand for baby formulas in China helped the boost in like-for-like sales, linked to the end of the one-child policy and the growth of an affluent middle class. The Evian brand also performed well with a 4% increase in sales. Sales at its dairy operations in Europe, dropped 0.3%. The Daily Mail says that finance chief Cecile Cabanis said she expected strong demand for baby products such as Aptamil baby milk to continue during the second quarter.

Procter & Gamble Co is to buy Merck KGaA’s consumer health business for €3.4bn, reports Bloomberg. Reuters says the offer price suggests that Merck climbed down from price demands of as much as 4bn euros, which sources have told Reuters deterred initial suitors such as Nestle, Perrigo and Stada owners Bain and Cinven.

Michael McLintock, the new chairman of Associated British Foods, has bought more than £201,000 shares in the business – 7,500 of them at 2,688p The Daily Mail.

Brussels has won unanimous approval form European Union members for its proposed rebalancing measures if the US refuses to make the exemption on US steel and aluminium tariffs for which the US is seeking concessions in return. The list includes motorbikes, bourbon, peanut butter, rice and corn, says The Times (£).

Former Department for International Trade official David Henig has warned that ministers will have to take controversial decisions on sensitive issues from the NHS to food standards as they negotiate post-Brexit trade deals, reports The Times (£). He noted in a report for the European Centre for International Political Economy think-tank “likely US asks” around agricultural regulation of products such as chickens and beef.

Data from the Office for National Statistics – the Consumer Prices Index, shows prices rose 2.5% last month (The Times (£). Analysts had expected the rate of inflation to remain unchanged from February’s rate of 2.7%. The data is unlikely to persuade the Bank of England to veer from an interest rate next month, says The Independent, but the Institute of Directors said this would be a less clear-cut affair than anticipated.

Aberdeen Standard Investments, a top-20 shareholder in Hammerson, said the retail property company was right to walk away from its merger with Intu “rather than face the embarrassment of failing to win shareholder support”, reports The Times (£). A separate analysis in the newspaper says it was clear there was trouble ahead when APG, Hammerson’s second largest shareholder, delivered a deadly blow when it wrote three letters objecting to the proposed deal, which it copied into the media The Times (£). The Daily Telegraph describes it as a “nightmare shopping trip” for David Atkins, Hammerson’s boss. Another article in The Daily Telegraph has Hammerson and Intu face “multi-million pound bills” for the failed tie-up. The Daily Mail calls Atkins “humiliated” as his “dream of creating a £21bn retail empire was shattered”. The Guardian adds, however, that Hammerson can only advise shareholders to vote against the deal because it cannot formally withdraw at this stage without agreement from Intu, which said it would consider Hammerson’s request not to hold a shareholders’ meeting to vote on the proposed deal.

A special report in the Financial Times (£) tells how Senegal hopes to reap the rewards of modernising agriculture as it strives to become a middle-income country by 2035.

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