The $771M gap between Adjusted EBITDA and IFRS operating profit decides the equity story.

• The gap. FY25 Adjusted EBITDA was $1,475M (15.9% margin); IFRS operating profit was $704M (7.6%). The $771M difference is 8.3% of revenue, comprising $397M of D&A plus ~$374M of separation/restructuring/hyperinflation adjusting items. Management has guided $500–530M of adjusting items for FY26 — higher than FY25's ~$374M run-rate as IT-stack build costs ramp.
• Bull read. Transitional plumbing — Transitional Service Agreement mark-ups, a $1.06B one-time inventory subsidy to Unilever, Türkiye hyperinflation, separation costs. Each item is individually disclosed and contractually rolls off by year-end 2027.
• Bear read. The FY26 $500–530M guide is higher than FY25's ~$374M of pure adjusting items, with cumulative 2025–2028 separation costs guided at ~$940M. The bonus and PSP frameworks are tied to the adjusted number, so management has no incentive to compress it. The cushion may persist longer than transitional.

AMEA is an emerging-market consumer compounder priced at a mature-staples multiple.

• The signature. AMEA delivered 22.9% Adjusted EBITDA margin on 10.9% organic growth and 4.5% volume growth in FY25 — contributing ~34% of group EBITDA on 24% of revenue. Q1 FY26 AMEA organic growth accelerated to 7.9% on +4.9% volume.
• Arithmetic, not heroics. Every 1pp of AMEA mix-shift adds ~10bps to group margin. The whole 40–60bps annual margin algorithm is largely AMEA mathematics — Europe and Americas don't have to do the heavy lifting.
• What it sits on. Cabinet-density local strength in Türkiye (Algida since 1990) and Pakistan, with India ramping behind Amul; per-capita ice cream consumption of 1–3 litres versus 7–11 in the West gives multi-decade runway. The Indian business closed 30 March 2026 with capacity build-out toward four factories from one underway.

FY25 looks broken on the screen; the underlying machine is a mid-teens-margin compounder freshly levered for the first time.

A $1.06B one-time inventory subsidy paid to Unilever, $663M of demerger outflows and a $123M YoY step-up in interest crushed reported FCF from $834M to $45M. Net debt jumped from $273M to $3.49B (2.4× Adj EBITDA, BBB/Baa2 investment-grade) when the $3.5B debut bond cleared seven-times oversubscribed in November. The FY25-end P/E of 28× drops to ~17× on adjusted earnings ($1.09 Adj EPS) — and on EV/Adj EBITDA, MICC is the cheapest name in the staples peer set.

Pay was paid as if the year worked; one in five shareholders disagreed.

• Bonus geometry. The 2025 short-term bonus (covering 23 Sept–31 Dec) paid at 95% of target while IFRS net income fell 48% and reported free cash flow fell 95%. A 76% formulaic outcome was lifted by a discretionary 125% strategic-priorities multiplier — at the design maximum — to reward 'successful separation and listing.'
• AGM dissent. 22.63% of shareholders voted against the Foundation Plan (a Dutch anti-takeover Stichting) at the 7 May 2026 AGM — the loudest single governance signal yet. KPMG begins its first SOX 404(b) audit in FY26, which the 20-F itself flags as a 'step-change' in control rigor.
• Unilever inside the boardroom. Reginaldo Ecclissato, a sitting member of the Unilever Leadership Executive, serves as a non-executive director on the Nomination and Governance Committee. Unilever retains 19.85% of the stock ($2.3B) with no published sell-down schedule.

The H1 FY2026 print in late July tests the margin algorithm; the Unilever stake decides what shareholders keep.

• The print. Q1 delivered organic volume growth fourteen times the consensus assumption (2.9% vs 0.2%), and the tape responded +14.3% on ~5× ADV on 30 April. H1 in late July or early August is the first full audit of whether Q1 was Easter timing or the algorithm. Bull and Bear scenarios both fire here.
• The overhang. Unilever retains $2.3B of stock against $24.5M of daily volume — 0.214% ADV/market-cap classifies the name as 'illiquid / specialist only.' A 15 May up-volume spike (~5× ADV, +11%) without an identified catalyst raises the probability of placement-related prints once Unilever begins selling.
• The cocoa tailwind. FY25 absorbed 380bps of commodity and supply-chain inflation while taking only 2.6% price — well below the 4–6% confectionery peers took. The CFO told the Q1 call that H2 is hedged at 'prices better than the place we started off the year' on cocoa, dairy and palm oil; about half the +40–60bps comparable margin guide is commodity relief, half productivity.