23rd Jul 2015 06:18
LONDON (Alliance News) - Unilever PLC Thursday reported a drop in profit in the first half of 2015, although revenue grew in each of its Personal Care, Foods, Refreshment and Home Care divisions.
The FTSE 100-listed maker of consumer products including Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Lipton tea, Vaseline and Dove beauty products, and Persil washing power, reported a 14% drop in pretax profit to EUR3.6 billion from EUR4.2 billion in the first half, although revenue grew 12% to EUR27 billion from EUR24.1 billion.
Both are at reported currencies. At constant currencies, revenue grew 1.8% and pretax profit fell 21%.
Unilever will pay a quarterly dividend for the second quarter of EUR0.302 per share.
"The sharpened strategies across each of our four categories and a step-up in our innovation pipeline are increasingly driving our growth and margin expansion in a continued challenging environment. Equally, on the cost side we continue to exceed the objectives set with project Half, enabling us to strengthen the investment behind our brands and to extend into premium segments and new markets. During the past six months we have also made major progress in the establishment of our Prestige Personal Care business with the announced acquisitions of Dermalogica, Murad, Kate Somerville and REN," Chief Executive Paul Polman said in a statement.
"We plan for another year of volume growth ahead of our markets, steady improvement in core operating margin and strong cash flow," he added.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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