BostonHerald.com - Business: Nestle chief rejects the need to `give back' to communities

BostonHerald.com - Business: Nestle chief rejects the need to `give back' to communities: "

Nestle chief rejects the need to `give back' to communities
By Jennifer Heldt Powell
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
Companies shouldn't feel obligated to ``give back'' to the community, because they haven't taken anything away, the Austrian-born chief of the world's largest food company told local executives yesterday.

In a stunning broadside to corporate citizenship as Bostonians have come to know it, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe - head of Nestle S.A. - said companies should only pursue charitable endeavors with an underlying intention of making money for investors.

``I think there is good reason for corporate philanthropy,'' Brabeck-Letmathe said, speaking to Boston College's Chief Executives' Club. ``But as managers, we need to be very careful, because it is not our money we're handing out, but the money of shareholders.'' "