Unilever nets €56m profits on back of plant closure and site sale
Surf washing powder is a Unilever brand. Jason Alden/Bloomberg
Wednesday November 26 2008
Unilever Ireland, whose products range from Persil to Pot Noodle, posted a profit of almost €56m last year after it sold a manufacturing site at Inchicore in Dublin, resulting in a gain of €50.2m during 2007.
It was the second year in a row that the company's Irish arm made significant exceptional gains that fed into its bottom line.
In 2006 it reported a gain of €31.2m on the sale of the Irish division of Bird's Eye as part of a deal to sell the wider frozen food business to private equity group Permira for €1.7bn.
Turnover from continuing operations at Unilever Ireland in 2007 was almost unchanged at €312.2m, while operating profit, excluding exceptionals, was €6.5m. That was a considerable improvement on the €13.2m pre-exceptional operating loss made in 2006.
Unilever has been restructuring its business operations in Ireland over the past two years. In 2006, it announced the closure of the Inchicore facility with the loss of 125 jobs. The plant manufactured products including Hellmann's Mayonaise and Knorr soups. It also blended and packaged Lyons Tea. The company owns a raft of other well-known products such as Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Sure and Domestos.
Earlier this year, the company began to outsource its field salesforce activities, while back-office support operations are also being outsourced in a move designed to simplify Unilever's structure and "leverage the group's scale more effectively". The firms employs 380 here.
Irish arm
Last month, the Irish arm also switched to what it describes as a local supply chain model. This is part of a wider group plan to allow individual operating units to source local produce and ingredients in order to meet local demand, and thereby minimise complexity.
The world's second largest consumer product company, Unilever last month said that third-quarter underlying sales excluding acquisitions rose 8.3pc, beating expectations.
Net income in the quarter rose 63pc to €1.64bn, also beating estimates and helped by gains from asset sales.
Higher commodity prices in the first nine months of the year saw Unilever's input costs rise by almost €2bn.
- John Mulligan
