(Alliance News) - Unilever PLC on Thursday said it plans a further EUR1.5 billion share buyback during 2024, maintaining the same pace as in 2022 and 2023, even as it reported a decline in annual profit.
The London-based maker of food & drink, cleaning, toiletry, and personal care products said pretax profit fell 9.7% to EUR9.34 billion in 2023 from EUR10.34 billion in 2022, as turnover slipped 0.8% to EUR59.60 billion from EUR60.07 billion.
Unilever declared a fourth-quarter dividend of EUR0.4268, unchanged from a year earlier.
The company also announced a new share buyback programme worth up to EUR1.5 billion, set to begin in the second quarter and be completed within 2024. Last year, Unilever completed the second half of a two-year EUR3.0 billion buyback it had announced at the start of 2022.
"Today's results show an improving financial performance, with the return to volume growth and margins rebuilding. However, our competitiveness remains disappointing and overall performance needs to improve. We are working to address this by improving our execution to unlock Unilever's full potential," said Chief Executive Officer Hein Schumacher.
Looking ahead, Unilever expects underlying sales growth for 2024 to be within its multi-year range of 3% to 5%, with more balance between volume increases and price hikes.
It said it anticipates a "modest" improvement in underlying operating margin for the full year. It intends to deliver this via gross margin expansion, "driven by a step-up in productivity and net material inflation back to more normal levels."
"In October, we set out a growth action plan focused on three priorities: delivering higher-quality growth, stepping up productivity and simplicity, and adopting a strong performance focus. The new leadership team has embedded the action plan at pace," said Schumacher.
"We have increased investment behind our 30 power brands, accelerated portfolio transformation, and are driving a sharper performance focus with clear and stretching targets across the whole organisation.
"We are at the early stages of this work and there is much to do but we are moving with speed and urgency to transform Unilever into a consistently higher performing business."
Shares in Unilever were up 3.1% to 4,024.13 pence each in London early Thursday.
By Greg Rosenvinge, Alliance News senior reporter
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