Good morning. Peter Vanham in Geneva filling in for Diane, who will be back in your inboxes tomorrow.

It’s the company you know from its Swedish meatball restaurants, the Billy bookcase, and of course, the flatpack furniture. But today, IKEA also wants to be known for another business challenge it says it has mastered: the internal CEO succession.

As this newsletter has highlighted in the past, getting succession right isn’t easy in the best of circumstances. The model where the CEO becomes executive chairman to ensure continuity, has often been a recipe for trouble. Ask Disney or Starbucks, and perhaps, soon, Target.

IKEA, however, is now touting its alternative: the temporary CEO overlap.

The Swede Jesper Brodin, chief executive for the past eight years, will make way in November for his Spanish deputy, and the first foreigner to become IKEA CEO, Juvencio Maeztu. The pair is going on a joint tour to inform their employees, suppliers, and customers. In an interview together (of course), Maeztu told me they wanted their well-choreographed transition to be a “proof point that internal succession works.”

For the next three months—until IKEA’s annual meeting—Brodin will continue to serve as CEO, while Maeztu will instead be on a “listening tour” at as many of the retailer’s locations as possible. Brodin will stay on for a few more months as senior advisor, after which he’ll officially leave the company.

“The most important thing for me is to allow him time,” Brodin told me, as Maeztu listened in. “The more I can relieve him, the better he’ll be prepared.”

“This is not about Jesper or myself,” Maeztu added. “We cannot hijack the transition. Doing this together is a good example of how one plus one equals three.”

IKEA’s carefully crafted and internal CEO succession model is becoming more common, headhunter Russell Reynolds said in a report released last month. Over the past year, three quarters of incoming CEOs were internally promoted, showing “companies are prioritizing stability” as they navigate regulatory and trade policy shifts, it said.

Yet when Maeztu does take over, there will be some tough calls to make.

In 2023, IKEA began investing $2.2 billion to expand its retail presence in the U.S. But with a historical model based on imports from Asia and Europe, the question going forward is how IKEA will be able to square its business model “for the many people” with tariffs driving up prices in the U.S.

And, while IKEA under Brodin has taken numerous sustainability initiatives, from generating its own clean power, to introducing a second-hand shop-in-shop, some of its circular and green economy initiatives will require regulatory support going forward, at a moment when sustainability is increasingly under pressure.And though there is change in the C-suite, don’t expect radical alterations to the beloved stores. “When we talk about change … We are not going to change the IKEA vision, nor the IKEA direction of being affordable, sustainable and accessible,” Maeztu said. “There is no change of strategy.”—Peter Vanham

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]

Top news

U.S. conducts military strike off Venezuelan coast

Eleven people were killed when the Pentagon conducted a “precision strike against a drug vessel operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization” off the coast of Venezuela, where President Trump has stationed a group of ships. Trump claimed the targets were “Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro,” the president of Venezuela.

The bond market is unhappy

A global selloff in government bond markets is underway, as investors reprice the level of risk they are willing to tolerate when lending money to governments that are running deficits. The yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury neared 5% on Tuesday; Japan’s 30-year bond hit a high of 3.29%; the U.K.’s 30-year gilt hit 5.72%, its highest since 1998. (Yields rise as prices fall.) Inflation expectations remain high, according to Apollo’s Torsten Sløk.

Federal courts hand Trump a string of losses

The president’s attempt to run the country via executive diktat suffered a setback as federal judges ruled against his administration in a set of unrelated cases. A California court ruled that Trump’s sending of troops to Los Angeles was illegal; a Washington D.C. appeals court ruled Trump did not have the right to fire the commissioner of the FTC; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit blocked part of Trump’s deportation program; and, of course, a federal appeals court earlier ruled Trump’s tariff regime was illegal—the White House has vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Nestle CEO initially denied having an affair

Laurent Freixe, who was dismissed as CEO of Nestlé yesterday, and the marketing executive he was having an affair with, both denied they were romantically involved when asked by colleagues, the WSJ reports. It took several calls to an internal company hotline, a letter to the chairman, and an investigation by a law firm to establish the truth.

Ruling reached in Google’s antitrust case

Google can no longer pay device manufacturers to make its search engine or Gemini AI models the default on phones, a federal judge has ruled in an antitrust case against the tech company. Google won’t be forced to divest its Chrome browser, however.

Dem. Senators push for overdraft answers

A group of Democratic senators led by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are requesting answers from the country’s biggest banks after President Donald Trump signed a bill revoking a rule that capped overdraft fees at $5. A letter by the senators was sent to 25 banks on Tuesday and aims to collect more data on how the rollback will change their current overdraft rules.

UBS puts recession risk at 93%

UBS analysts state that there is a 93% chance of a recession in the U.S. based on “hard data” including the inverted yield curve and stress in credit markets. The bank expects “soggy growth” in the near-future but an improved outlook in 2026.

There’s a new Vogue editor, kinda

Chloe Malle, the daughter of actor Candice Bergen, has been named “head of editorial content” at Vogue, ostensibly succeeding longtime editor Anna Wintour. However, Wintour remains as Conde Nast’s chief content officer, overseeing Malle, and Wintour “isn’t even moving out of her office,” the NYT says.

More Epstein files released

The House Oversight Committee released more than 33,000 documents on Jeffrey Epstein previously held by the Department of Justice. More files are due to be released as the DOJ satisfies a subpoena deadline of September 8. Committee members met with six Epstein victims and “additional names” of potential witnesses were heard. Context: It’s not clear how much of this information is new.

The markets

S&P 500 futures were up 0.36% this morning. The index closed down 0.69% in its last trading session. STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.64% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.35% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.88%. China’s CSI 300 was down 0.68%. The South Korea KOSPI was up 0.38%. India’s Nifty 50 up 0.41% before the end of the session. Bitcoin rose to $110.9K.