Company profile
SEC EDGAR ↗- Industry
- Soap, Detergents, Cleang Preparations, Perfumes, Cosmetics
- Listed
- NYSE: UL
- Headquarters
- London
- Fiscal year end
- Dec 31
Financials
FY2025- Revenue
- €50.5B
- Net income
- €10.0B
- Total assets
- €70.5B
| Fiscal year | Revenue | Net income | Total assets |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | €50.5B | €10.0B | €70.5B |
| FY2024 | €52.5B | €6.37B | €79.8B |
| FY2023 | €51.7B | €7.14B | €75.3B |
| FY2022 | €60.1B | €8.27B | €77.8B |
| FY2021 | €52.4B | €6.62B | €75.1B |
| FY2020 | €50.7B | €6.07B | €67.7B |
Reported fiscal years from SEC filings (20-F) — SEC EDGAR ↗. Stratrix is a strategy publication, not a real-time financial data service.
Decisions on record
5 verified Decision Records on Unilever, and the casebook each one belongs to.
| Fork date | Decision type | The story | Casebook |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Crisis Response | Read the story → | Crisis Response Casebook → |
| 2022 | The Fork | Read the story → | The Fork Casebook → |
| 2023 | Culture Doctrine | Read the story → | Culture Doctrine Casebook → |
| 2023 | Culture Doctrine | Read the story → | Culture Doctrine Casebook → |
| 2024 | Adjacency Expansion | Read the story → | Adjacency Expansion Casebook → |
Run one of these yourself
The decisions Unilever faced, as kits you can run.
Each pack takes one of these decisions and gives you the framework, a deck for the room, a model that resolves to one number, and the sourced cases behind it. $499, one-time.
Growth & PortfolioThe Adjacency ExpansionWhen does the business next door belong to you?See the pack →Crisis & ReinventionThe Crisis ResponseWhat is one more quarter of not acting worth?See the pack →People & ControlThe RefusalWhat does your doctrine refuse, and can you pay for it in a bad year?See the pack →
The analyses
The Adjacency Expansion · Growth & Portfolio
A £50bn Bid Rejected Three Times, an €8bn Spin-Off: Unilever's Reshaping Was a Retreat
The story is a CEO boldly pruning to focus. The record is a retreat: a £50bn GSK bid rejected three times, an €8bn ice cream business spun off after years of underperformance, and a demerger that completed a month late.
7 min
The Crisis Response · Crisis & Reinvention
A Thin Premium and a Legal Clock: How Unilever Killed Kraft's $143bn Bid in 48 Hours
In 48 hours Unilever rejected a $143bn approach from Kraft Heinz. The story says purpose won. The truth: an 18% premium was too thin to be credible, the UK Takeover Code handed Polman a killswitch, and six weeks later he conceded most of the cost-cutting case anyway.
8 min
The Culture Doctrine · People & Control
Unilever Keeps Issuing One Cultural Doctrine for 400 Brands. That's the Bug, Not the Brand.
First every brand had to have a purpose. Then no brand was force-fitted one. Now mass advertising is 'dead.' Unilever keeps swapping doctrines while missing the real flaw: any single rule applied across 400 brands and 190 countries kills the brand-level judgment it claims to set free.
8 min
The Culture Doctrine · People & Control
Unilever Tried to Give Mayonnaise a Purpose. A Shareholder Called It Losing the Plot.
Unilever's purpose-brands doctrine was sold as a growth engine. The CEO cited 'extremely strong data.' A top-10 shareholder called it correlation dressed as cause - and within a few years, a succession of CEOs and a Power Brands playbook quietly proved him right.
8 min
The Fork · Decision Forks
Unilever redrew itself into five business groups in January 2022 — before its activist held a single board seat
The legend says Nelson Peltz forced Unilever's five-business-group reorg in 2022. But the redesign was announced months before Peltz ever joined the board. The real capitulations — the CEO's exit, the Ice Cream carve-out — came 18 to 24 months later, under a different leader.
7 min