World Business: Unilever’s Levers

Whenever an American housewife uses a detergent, an African woman buys a mammy cloth, or an Englishman pops into a fish-and-chips shop for a snack, the chances are good that the company that will profit is a corporate colossus called Unilever.

Unilever is the second-largest business firm outside the U.S. (after Royal Dutch/Shell) and the world’s sixth largest company. Composed of two holding companies—a British half, Unilever Ltd., and a Dutch half, Unilever N. V. —Unilever controls 104 major companies, has 448 direct or indirect subsidiaries in 53 countries, and sells 1,200 different products. Some of its holdings: United Africa Group, Africa’s largest trading company; Britain’s 400 Mac Fisheries stores; and the U.S.’s Lever Bros., makers of Vim, Lux, and All. Unilever also owns Lipton Tea, which in turn owns Good Humor, street purveyors of ice cream in the U.S.

Last week giant Unilever showed that not only U.S. companies are pulling the levers of progress. In quick succession, it announced that its earnings climbed 15% to $76 million and sales rose to $2,098,000,000 for 1963’s first half, proposed a 4-for-3 split of both the British and Dutch shares. As an added fillip, the Unilever directors promised to pay a 30¢ interim dividend on British shares and a 50¢ dividend on Dutch shares as soon as the shareholders approve the split. On the New York, London and Amsterdam stock exchanges, Unilever stocks soared.