Edited by: TJVNews.com
In order to help bolster sales growth and to tamp down dissatisfaction among investors, the Unilever company has announced that is it planning to restructure its operations into five stand-alone divisions, as was reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The WSJ reported that on Tuesday, the company would now run as “five, category-focused divisions—beauty and well-being, personal care, home care, nutrition, and ice cream—rather than its three previous units of food and refreshments, beauty and personal care, and home care.”
The company, which owns Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Dove Soap, also plans to reshuffle top executives and cut 1,500 jobs. Unilever employs about 149,000 people.
“Growth remains our top priority and these changes will underpin our pursuit of this,” said Unilever Chief Executive Alan Jope. He also added that the restructuring plan would allow Unilever to become more accountable and more responsive to trends in the industry.
It was also reported that Jope has been under pressure to accelerate the growth in sales worldwide.
The Wall Street Journal and others reported over the weekend that Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management LP had acquired a stake in Unilever. That news came just days after the company abandoned a $68 billion bid for GlaxoSmithKline PLC’s consumer-healthcare business after it was rebuffed on price and criticized by Unilever’s shareholders.
The Jewish News Syndicate reported that the move follows Ben & Jerry’s decision to break its contract with its Israeli licensee, who refused to stop selling the company’s ice cream in Judea and Samaria.
The states of New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Colorado and Arizona have decided to remove investments from their pension funds in Unilever, because the company was found to violate anti-BDS laws that were passed in those states, according to the JNS report.
“Unilever continues to run away from its responsibility as a parent company,” said Avi Zinger, director-general of Ben & Jerry’s Israel, the Israeli licensee. “Instead of taking responsibility and canceling the boycott, Unilever prefers to put its head in the sand and ignore the fact that it is solely in charge of all the companies it owns, including Ben & Jerry’s worldwide.”
JNS reported that Zinger said that Ben & Jerry’s Israel would continue to struggle against the banning of sales in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and will use all tools at its disposal to persuade Unilever to assume the necessary responsibility.
Last week, it was reported that Unilever’s stock plunged 20.7% in the six months since it informed Zinger that his contract was ending, as was reported by JNS.
This amounts to a $26 billion loss, according to Channel 12 News, which first reported on the story. JNS reported that losses were reportedly due to numerous factors, including a failure to reach profit targets.
The WSJ reported that last week, Unilever said that it was making efforts to focus more on hygiene products, as well as a health and beauty line of products.
According to the WSJ report, Unilever said “its beauty and well-being division would include vitamins—an area where the company has been beefing up—as well haircare, skin care and its prestige business, which houses upscale beauty brands. The personal care division will include skin cleansing, deodorants, and oral care brands, and be led by Unilever’s current head of North America, Fabian Garcia.”
The WSJ report add that: “The nutrition arm will include ingredients lines such as Knorr, and a group of foods Unilever is describing as healthy snacking such as its Graze brand. Also included in the nutrition business: so-called functional-nutrition products, such as its Horlicks malt drink, plant-based meat alternatives, and its business that sells ingredients to restaurants and offices. It will be led by Unilever’s current head of food and refreshments, Hanneke Faber.” (Sources: WSJ.com and JNS.org)
