Nestle shares opened down more than 2.5% after the maker of Nescafe, Cheerios, KitKat, and Rolos dismissed its chief executive after an investigation into an undisclosed romantic relationship with an employee.

On Monday night, Nestle announced that the immediate dismissal of Laurent Freixe, effective immediately, following the investigation into the relationship, with a direct employee, which had breached the company’s code of business conduct.

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The replacement for Mr Freixe was announced as being Philipp Navratil, a long-time Nestle executive and former head of Nespresso, the brand of coffee machines owned by Nestle.

It’s the second CEO departure from the Swiss food giant in a year.

Mr Freixe’s predecessor, Mark Schneider, was suddenly removed a year ago, and in June, the longstanding chair, Paul Bulcke, announced he would step down in 2026.

No further detail on the relationship was released by the company, nor was additional information on whom the person Mr Freixe had the relationship with.

Mr Bulcke, who led the investigation, said: “This was a necessary decision. Nestle’s values and governance are strong foundations of our company. I thank Laurent for his years of service at Nestle.”

Mr Freixe had been with Nestle since 1986, holding roles around the world, including chief executive of Zone Latin America.

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Nestle’s shares, a bedrock of the Swiss stock exchange, lost almost a third of their value over the past five years, performing worse than other European stocks.

The appointment of Mr Freixe’s had failed to halt the slide, and the company’s shares shed 17% during his leadership, disappointing investors.

The owner of the Cote restaurant chain is exploring the option of injecting new funding into the business and retaining control after two months of talks with potential buyers.

Sky News has learnt that Partners Group, the Swiss-based private equity firm, is seriously considering providing millions of pounds of new capital to finance a turnaround plan which would be likely to involve the closure of loss-making sites.

Partners Group hired Interpath Advisory during the summer to sound out prospective bidders.

A number of those discussions are said to be ongoing.

Cote was bought out of administration by Partners Group in the autumn of 2020 in a deal reportedly worth £55m.

The chain trades from about 70 restaurants, down from close to 100 shortly before it collapsed into insolvency five years ago.

Sources close to the sale process said that Interpath had been marketing the company based on last year’s turnover of over £150m.

Roughly 60 of the sites are said to be profitable, implying there could be scope for further closures.

The sale process comes at a time when hospitality venue operators continue to face severe financial pressures, with the industry’s leading trade body recently warning of a further jobs bloodbath in the months ahead.

“If we carry on with these trends and the situation doesn’t improve – and clearly Rachel Reeves’s statements are giving a signal to consumers that it is not going to get better any time soon – then I would see this accelerating,” said Kate Nicholls, chair of UK Hospitality.

“Unless there is a change of tack by the government, we are looking at 150,000-200,000 fewer workers in hospitality during the first full year of [employer national insurance contribution] changes.”

Partners Group and Interpath declined to comment.

Thames Water’s largest group of creditors is to offer an additional £1bn-plus sweetener in a bid to persuade Ofwat and the government to pursue a rescue deal with them that would head off the nationalisation of Britain’s biggest water utility.

Sky News has learnt that the senior creditors, which account for roughly £13bn of Thames Water‘s top-ranking debt, will propose this month that they inject hundreds of millions of pounds of new equity and write off a substantial additional portion of their existing capital.

In total, the extra equity and debt haircut are understood to total roughly £1.25bn, although the precise split between them was unclear on Monday evening.

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The numbers were still subject to being finalised as part of a comprehensive plan to be submitted to Ofwat, according to people close to the process.

Thames Water has about 16 million customers and serves about a quarter of the UK population.

The creditor group, which includes funds such as Elliott Management and Silver Point Capital, is racing to secure backing for a deal that would avoid seeing their investments effectively wiped out in a special administration regime (SAR).

Sky News revealed last month that Steve Reed, the environment secretary, had authorised the appointment of FTI Consulting, a City restructuring firm, to advise on contingency planning for a SAR.

On Monday, The Times reported that Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, had reaffirmed the government’s desire to see a “market-based solution” to the crisis at Thames Water.

The company’s main group of creditors had already offered £3bn of new equity and roughly £2bn of debt financing, which, alongside other elements, represented a roughly 20pc haircut on their existing exposure to Thames Water.

On Tuesday, the creditors are expected to set out further details of their operational plans for the company, in an attempt to allay concerns that they are insufficiently experienced to take on the task of running the UK’s biggest water company.