Nestle appoints new division heads as Polman leaves

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss food group Nestle (NESN.VX) appointed on Thursday new regional heads in the Americas and Europe as its Americas head Paul Polman is moving to arch rival Unilever Plc (ULVR.L) as chief executive.

The world's largest food group said Luis Cantarell was moving from his position heading the Europe business to take over the Americas job from Polman with immediate effect. Laurent Freixe will succeed Cantarell as head of the Europe business.

Polman, previously Nestle chief financial officer, had long been seen as the front runner to take over from Peter Brabeck-Letmathe as Nestle's chief executive, but the board instead picked former Americas head Paul Bulcke last September.

Freixe moves to head the Europe business in November from his position as market head of the Iberian region. He joined Nestle in France in 1987, where he led the food and nutrition division until 2003 before working as market head in Hungary.

Nestle shares were off 0.1 percent at 48.56 Swiss francs at 4:03 a.m. EDT, while Unilever soared 5 percent to 15.70 pounds.

Vontobel's Claudia Lenz said she was sorry to see Polman go as he had helped lead key developments at Nestle such as its share buyback program, but despite this she still favored the Swiss company, which is trading at 13.7 times forecast 2009 earnings, compared to its peer group at 14.9 times.

"With the appointment of Luis Cantarell as Head Zone Americas and Laurent Freixe as Head Zone Europe these positions are filled with long-standing Nestle managers who already have a wealth of experience in their new regions," she said.

(Reporting by Sven Egenter and Emma Thomasson; editing by Quentin Bryar/Simon Jessop)