Unilever's Underlying 1H Performance Was Solid

Amid fragmentation in consumer tastes as well as in retail and marketing channels, along with lower barriers to entry for startups, most consumer staples multinationals are fighting strong organic growth headwinds, and many are cutting costs in order to spend to drive growth. With value growth in most categories currently running at little more than 2%, not all of the large caps will be successful in regenerating growth to the 4%-5% they used to enjoy. In the case of Unilever, while we think the management team is taking the right steps to optimize its investments in its business, we expect growth to remain sluggish in the company's competitive categories.