Hindustan Unilever Ltd has posted a net profit of 16 per cent at Rs 871 crore in the third quarter of FY’13. Net sales grew 15 per cent with an underlying volume growth of 5 per cent.
Both Home and Personal Care and Foods & Beverages segments registered double-digit growth.
Harish Manwani, Chairman, said: “In an environment that continued to be challenging, we have delivered another quarter of broad-based growth and margin expansion. The business is consistently winning in the marketplace by remaining sharply focused on the needs of our large consumer base and successfully leveraging Unilever’s strong global innovation pipeline and best practices.”
Meanwhile, the board of directors approved a proposal to enter into a new agreement with Unilever Plc (and entities of the Unilever Group) for the provision of technology, trademark licences and other services to HUL.
Benefits to HUL
In recent years, Unilever has been increasingly globalising its resources to provide greater expertise, superior innovations and scale the advantage for all Unilever entities, with an increased emphasis on developing and emerging markets, including India.
The pace of innovations and the scope of services have expanded over the years, and as a consequence, HUL is enjoying the benefits of an increasing stream of new products and innovations, backed by technology and knowhow from Unilever.
The company is also receiving support and guidance to drive its functional excellence in marketing, supply management, media buying etc. This helps HUL to remain competitive and further step-up its overall business performance.
New agreement
In the context of the huge growth opportunity in India, as well as increasing intensity of competition particularly from global players, Unilever is committed to ensuring that the support in terms of new products, innovations, technologies and services is commensurate with the needs of HUL to win in the market place and continue to generate significant value for all the shareholders of HUL.
The stock reacted negatively to the royalty decision by the management. It went down by 6 per cent but soon recovered to close down by 2.69 per cent.