Unilever Investor
Event
Delivering the Growth Action
Plan for consistent, higher performance
London, 22 November
2024. Unilever is hosting an Investor Event today. The event
will focus on the progress made over the last year, and set out the
company's strategic agenda under its "Growth Action Plan 2030" to
deliver consistent, higher performance with market-making,
unmissably superior brands.
The Investor Event will also confirm
that Unilever remains on track to deliver our comprehensive €800m
productivity programme and the separation of Ice Cream by the end
of 2025.
Post the separation of Ice Cream, the
Group will be focused on four Business Groups:
- Beauty & Wellbeing
- Personal Care
- Home Care
- Foods (formerly Nutrition)
These four Business Groups will be
driven by 30 Power Brands and operate across 24 Business Group-led
markets. These 24 markets represent nearly 85% of Unilever's
turnover. The remaining 100+ smaller markets will be run on a 'One
Unilever' basis to benefit from scale and simplicity, further
enhancing our portfolio prioritisation and focus.
Growth Action Plan 2030
The Growth Action Plan 2030 builds on
the foundations of the existing Growth Action Plan and will drive
consistent and improved performance under three strategic pillars:
Focus, Excel and Accelerate.
Under Focus, Unilever will focus on its
Power Brands, and the key markets where we can drive the biggest
returns. This means:
- Doubling-down in India
- Accelerating and internationalising Prestige and
Wellbeing
- Premiumising and accelerating the US
- Growing select emerging market powerhouses
- Premiumising Europe whilst protecting profitability
Under Excel, Unilever will focus on five key
opportunities to drive brand growth. These are:
- Unmissable brand superiority
- Social-first demand creation
- Multi-year scalable innovations
- Premiumisation
- Growth channels
Under Accelerate, four critical capabilities
will be prioritised to enable the step-up in our performance.
These are:
- Science & technology
- Lean agile supply chain
- Net productivity
- Scaled Artificial Intelligence
Unilever's medium-term guidance
remains unchanged. Post the separation of Ice Cream, we aim to
deliver mid-single digit underlying sales growth, supported by
underlying volume growth of at least 2%. We expect modest
underlying operating margin improvement, driven by gross margin
expansion through operating leverage and productivity
improvements.
Our ambition is to deliver top third
total shareholder return across our peer group and achieve an
underlying return on invested capital in the high teens, ahead of
our previous ambition of mid-teens. Our business is a strong cash
generator, and we aim to sustain an average cash conversion ratio
of around 100% over time. Value creation will be underpinned by
disciplined capital allocation. This will include making
investments to drive growth and productivity, continuing to reshape
our portfolio through pruning and bolt-on acquisitions, and
delivering attractive capital returns to shareholders.
Hein Schumacher, CEO of Unilever
said: "Our goal is to deliver best-in-class performance with
market-making, unmissably superior brands. We believe that our
Growth Action Plan 2030 will help us to deliver on this
ambition.
"Delighting our consumers is at the
very heart of our plan. Through our company's new purpose,
'To brighten everyday life for
all', we are focused on making the lives of people around
the world more joyful, more convenient, more efficient and more
sustainable.
"We are excited about the
opportunities to drive Unilever's future growth, as we continue to
progress Unilever's transformation and unlock the company's full
potential. We look forward to sharing our plans with investors
later today."
ENDS
Enquiries
Media:
Unilever Press Office
press-office.london@unilever.com
Investors:
Investor Relations Team
investor.relations@unilever.com
A live webcast of the Unilever
Investor Event 2024 will be available via www.unilever.com
About Unilever
Unilever is one of the world's
leading suppliers of Beauty & Wellbeing, Personal Care, Home
Care, Foods and Ice Cream products, with sales in over 190
countries and products used by 3.4 billion people every day. We
have 128,000 employees and generated sales of €59.6 billion in
2023.
For more information about Unilever
and our brands, please visit www.unilever.com.
Safe
Harbour
This announcement may contain forward-looking statements,
including 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of the
United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995,
concerning the financial condition, results of operations and
businesses of the Unilever Group (the 'Group'). All statements
other than statements of historical fact are, or may be deemed to
be, forward-looking statements. Words and terminology such as
'will', 'aim', 'expects', 'anticipates', 'intends', 'looks',
'believes', 'vision', 'ambition', 'target', 'goal', 'plan',
'potential', 'work towards', 'may', 'milestone', 'objectives',
'outlook', 'probably', 'project', 'risk', 'seek', 'continue',
'projected', 'estimate', 'achieve' or the negative of these terms
and other similar expressions of future performance, results,
actions or events, and their negatives, are intended to identify
such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements also
include, but are not limited to, statements and information
regarding Unilever's Growth Action Plan 2030, Unilever's
productivity programme and the separation of Ice Cream.
Forward-looking statements can be made in writing but also may be
made verbally by directors, officers and employees of the Group
(including during management presentations) in connection with this
announcement or the Investor Event. These forward-looking
statements are based upon current beliefs, expectations and
assumptions regarding anticipated developments and other factors
affecting the Group. They are not historical facts, nor are they
guarantees of future performance or outcomes. All forward-looking
statements contained in this announcement are expressly qualified
in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained or
referred to in this section. Readers should not place undue
reliance on forward-looking statements.
Because these forward-looking statements involve known and
unknown risks and uncertainties, a number of which may be beyond
the Group's control, there are important factors that could cause
actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied
by these forward-looking statements. Among other risks and
uncertainties, the material or principal factors which could cause
actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking
statements expressed in this announcement are: Unilever's ability
to successfully separate Ice Cream and realise the anticipated
benefits of the separation, and Unilever's ability to successfully
execute and consummate its productivity programme in line with
expected costs to achieve expected savings. The forward-looking
statements are based on our beliefs, assumptions and expectations
of our future performance, taking into account all information
currently available to us. Forward-looking statements are not
predictions of future events. These beliefs, assumptions and
expectations can change as a result of many possible events or
factors, not all of which are known to us.
The
forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this
announcement. Except as required by any applicable law or
regulation, the Group expressly disclaims any intention, obligation
or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any
forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change
in the Group's expectations with regard thereto or any change in
events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is
based. New risks and uncertainties arise over time, and it is not
possible for us to predict those events or how they may affect us.
In addition, we cannot assess the impact of each factor on our
business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of
factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those
contained in any forward-looking statements.
Further details of potential risks and uncertainties affecting
the Group are described in the Group's filings with the London
Stock Exchange, Euronext Amsterdam and the US Securities and
Exchange Commission, including in the Annual Report on Form 20-F
2023 and the Unilever Annual Report and Accounts 2023 available on
our corporate website www.unilever.com.
