Thursday, 23 October 2014

Unilever 3rd quarter trading

Unilever Logo

A manufacturer and supplier of fast moving consumer goods, with more than 400 brands focused on health and wellbeing, 14 of which generate sales in excess of €1 billion a year. I have a holding in my income portfolio (epic code: ULVR).



Unilever gave an update on third quarter performance today stating that underlying sales growth in the quarter was 2.1%, with volume growth of 0.3% and price up 1.8%; this produced nine months sales of €36.3bn a reported decline of -4.3%. 
 
Underlying growth for the nine months was 3.2% compared to 3.7% for the first six months; volume & price contributed 1.4% & 1.8% respectively.  Growth in emerging markets was 6.2%, this compared to 6.6% at the half year. 
 
The lower total growth was mainly the effect of a sharp slow down in China and negative price pressure in North America, France Germany and UK.
 
The third quarter dividend is €0.285 a 5.9% increase on last year, unfortunately due to the strength of sterling the pay-out to UK shareholders is a -1.2% reduction to 22.52p. 
 
On the outlook for the year CEO Polman stated "...We are confident that we will achieve another year of profitable volume growth ahead of our markets, steady and sustainable core operating margin improvement and strong cash flow..."

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