UNILEVER COMPANY PROFILE

Company History:

If the adage 'two heads are better than one' applies to business, then certainly Unilever is a prime example. The food and consumer products giant actually has two parent companies: Unilever PLC, based in the United Kingdom, and Unilever N.V., based in The Netherlands. The two companies, which operate virtually as a single corporation, are run by a single group of directors and are linked by a number of agreements. Unilever considers itself the second largest consumer goods firm in the world, trailing only Philip Morris Companies Inc., and produces numerous brand name foods, cleaning products, and personal care items. About 52 percent of revenues are generated in the foods sector; brands include Imperial and Promise margarines, Lipton tea, Ragú foods, Lawry's seasonings, Breyers ice cream, and Birds Eye and Gorton's frozen foods. One-quarter of sales come from the personal care area; brands include Caress and Dove soap, Pears and Pond's skin care products, Degree, Fabergé, and Sure deodorants, Suave and Salon Selectives hair care items, Close-Up, Mentadent, and Pepsodent oral care products, and Calvin Klein, Elizabeth Arden, and Elizabeth Taylor prestige fragrances&mdash well as such miscellaneous brands as Q-Tips and Vaseline. Unilever's third major sector is that of cleaning products, which is responsible for about 22 percent of turnover; brands include Wisk and All laundry detergents, Snuggle and Final Touch fabric softeners, and Sunlight dish detergents, and this area also includes the company's line of institutional cleaning products. Unilever maintains production facilities in 88 countries and sells its products in an additional 70. About 47 percent of revenues originate in Europe, 21 percent in North America, 14 percent in the Asia-Pacific region, 12 percent in Latin America, and six percent in Africa and the Middle East.



Key Dates:
1872: Two Dutch firms, Jurgens and Van den Bergh, begin commercial production of margarine.
1885: William Hesketh Lever establishes soap factory in Warrington, marking the beginnings of Lever Brothers.
1908: Jurgens and Van den Bergh pool their interests.
1914: Lever begins producing margarine at the request of the British government.
1927: Jurgens and Van den Bergh create dual-structured Margarine Union Limited and Margarine Unie N.V.
1929: Margarine Union/Margarine Unie merges with Lever Brothers to create Unilever, with dual Anglo-Dutch structure.
1930: Special committee is established as a board of directors over the British and Dutch Unilever holding companies.
1937: Reorganization equalizes the assets of the Dutch and the British groups of Unilever; Thomas J. Lipton Company, U.S. manufacturer of tea, is acquired.
1944: The U.S. toothpaste brand Pepsodent is acquired.
1957: Company acquires U.K. frozen foods maker Birds Eye.
1961: U.S. ice cream novelty maker Good Humor is acquired.
1984: Buying spree begins that will last until 1988 and result in about 80 companies being acquired; Brooke Bond, the leading European tea company, is acquired through hostile takeover.
1986: Company acquires Chesebrough-Pond's, its largest purchase to date.
1989: The acquisition of three companies, including Fabergé Inc., makes the company a major player in the world perfume and cosmetics industry.
1994: The launch of a new laundry detergent in Europe turns into a public relations disaster when tests reveal that it can damage clothes under certain conditions.
1996: Fundamental management reorganisation is launched, including the replacing of the special committee with a seven-member executive committee.
1997: Specialty chemicals operations are sold to Imperial Chemical Industries PLC for about US$8 billion.
1999: Company announces that it will eliminate about 1,200 of its brands to focus on around 400 regionally or globally powerful brands.