Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods Company with a heritage of over 75 years in India and touches the lives of two out of three Indians.
HUL works to create a better future every day and helps people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others.
With over 35 brands spanning 20 distinct categories such as soaps, detergents, shampoos, skin care, toothpastes, deodorants, cosmetics, tea, coffee, packaged foods, ice cream, and water purifiers, the Company is a part of the everyday life of millions of consumers across India. Its portfolio includes leading household brands such as Lux, Lifebuoy, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely, Pond’s, Vaseline, Lakmé, Dove, Clinic Plus, Sunsilk, Pepsodent, Closeup, Axe, Brooke Bond, Bru, Knorr, Kissan, Kwality Wall’s and Pureit.
The Company has over 16,000 employees and has an annual turnover of around Rs. 21,736 crores (financial year 2011 - 2012). HUL is a subsidiary of Unilever, one of the world’s leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with strong local roots in more than 100 countries across the globe with annual sales of about €46.5 billion in 2011. Unilever has about 52% shareholding in HUL.
Our vision
Unilever products touch the lives of over 2 billion people every day – whether that's through feeling great because they've got shiny hair and a brilliant smile, keeping their homes fresh and clean, or by enjoying a great cup of tea, satisfying meal or healthy snack.
A clear direction
The four pillars of our vision set out the long term direction for the company – where we want to go and how we are going to get there:
- We work to create a better future every day
- We help people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others.
- We will inspire people to take small everyday actions that can add up to a big difference for the world.
- We will develop new ways of doing business with the aim of doubling the size of our company while reducing our environmental impact.
We've always believed in the power of our brands to improve the quality of people’s lives and in doing the right thing. As our business grows, so do our responsibilities. We recognise that global challenges such as climate change concern us all. Considering the wider impact of our actions is embedded in our values and is a fundamental part of who we are.
Hindustan Unilever Limited is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) company. It is present in Home & Personal Care and Foods & Beverages categories. HUL has over 16,500 employees, including over 1500 managers
The fundamental principle determining the organisation structure is to infuse speed and flexibility in decision-making and implementation, with empowered managers across the company’s nationwide operations.
The Board of Directors of the Company represents an optimum mix of professionalism, knowledge and experience. The total strength of the Board of Directors of the Company is nine Directors, comprising Non-Executive Chairman, four Executive Directors and four Non-Executive Independent Directors.
The day-to-day management of affairs of the Company is vested with the Management Committee which is subjected to the overall superintendence and control of the Board.
Purpose & principles
Our corporate purpose states that to succeed requires "the highest standards of corporate behaviour towards everyone we work with, the communities we touch, and the environment on which we have an impact."
Always working with integrity
Conducting our operations with integrity and with respect for the many people, organisations and environments our business touches has always been at the heart of our corporate responsibility.
Positive impact
We aim to make a positive impact in many ways: through our brands, our commercial operations and relationships, through voluntary contributions, and through the various other ways in which we engage with society.
Continuous commitment
We're also committed to continuously improving the way we manage our environmental impacts and are working towards our longer-term goal of developing a sustainable business.
Setting out our aspirations
Our corporate purpose sets out our aspirations in running our business. It's underpinned by our code of business Principles which describes the operational standards that everyone at Unilever follows, wherever they are in the world. The code also supports our approach to governance and corporate responsibility.
Working with others
We want to work with suppliers who have values similar to our own and work to the same standards we do. Our Business partner code, aligned to our own Code of business principles, comprises ten principles covering business integrity and responsibilities relating to employees, consumers and the environment
In the summer of 1888, visitors to the Kolkata harbour noticed crates full of Sunlight soap bars, embossed with the words "Made in England by Lever Brothers". With it, began an era of marketing branded Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG).
Soon after followed Lifebuoy in 1895 and other famous brands like Pears, Lux and Vim. Vanaspati was launched in 1918 and the famous Dalda brand came to the market in 1937.
In 1931, Unilever set up its first Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company, followed by Lever Brothers India Limited (1933) and United Traders Limited (1935). These three companies merged to form HUL in November 1956; HUL offered 10% of its equity to the Indian public, being the first among the foreign subsidiaries to do so. Unilever now holds 52.10% equity in the company. The rest of the shareholding is distributed among about 360,675 individual shareholders and financial institutions.
The erstwhile Brooke Bond's presence in India dates back to 1900. By 1903, the company had launched Red Label tea in the country. In 1912, Brooke Bond & Co. India Limited was formed. Brooke Bond joined the Unilever fold in 1984 through an international acquisition. The erstwhile Lipton's links with India were forged in 1898. Unilever acquired Lipton in 1972, and in 1977 Lipton Tea (India) Limited was incorporated.
Pond's (India) Limited had been present in India since 1947. It joined the Unilever fold through an international acquisition of Chesebrough Pond's USA in 1986.
Since the very early years, HUL has vigorously responded to the stimulus of economic growth. The growth process has been accompanied by judicious diversification, always in line with Indian opinions and aspirations.
The liberalisation of the Indian economy, started in 1991, clearly marked an inflexion in HUL's and the Group's growth curve. Removal of the regulatory framework allowed the company to explore every single product and opportunity segment, without any constraints on production capacity.
Simultaneously, deregulation permitted alliances, acquisitions and mergers. In one of the most visible and talked about events of India's corporate history, the erstwhile Tata Oil Mills Company (TOMCO) merged with HUL, effective from April 1, 1993. In 1996, HUL and yet another Tata company, Lakme Limited, formed a 50:50 joint venture, Lakme Unilever Limited, to market Lakme's market-leading cosmetics and other appropriate products of both the companies. Subsequently in 1998, Lakme Limited sold its brands to HUL and divested its 50% stake in the joint venture to the company.
HUL formed a 50:50 joint venture with the US-based Kimberly Clark Corporation in 1994, Kimberly-Clark Lever Ltd, which markets Huggies Diapers and Kotex Sanitary Pads. HUL has also set up a subsidiary in Nepal, Unilever Nepal Limited (UNL), and its factory represents the largest manufacturing investment in the Himalayan kingdom. The UNL factory manufactures HUL's products like Soaps, Detergents and Personal Products both for the domestic market and exports to India.
The 1990s also witnessed a string of crucial mergers, acquisitions and alliances on the Foods and Beverages front. In 1992, the erstwhile Brooke Bond acquired Kothari General Foods, with significant interests in Instant Coffee. In 1993, it acquired the Kissan business from the UB Group and the Dollops Icecream business from Cadbury India.
As a measure of backward integration, Tea Estates and Doom Dooma, two plantation companies of Unilever, were merged with Brooke Bond. Then in 1994, Brooke Bond India and Lipton India merged to form Brooke Bond Lipton India Limited (BBLIL), enabling greater focus and ensuring synergy in the traditional Beverages business. 1994 witnessed BBLIL launching the Wall's range of Frozen Desserts. By the end of the year, the company entered into a strategic alliance with the Kwality Icecream Group families and in 1995 the Milkfood 100% Icecream marketing and distribution rights too were acquired.
Finally, BBLIL merged with HUL, with effect from January 1, 1996. The internal restructuring culminated in the merger of Pond's (India) Limited (PIL) with HUL in 1998. The two companies had significant overlaps in Personal Products, Speciality Chemicals and Exports businesses, besides a common distribution system since 1993 for Personal Products. The two also had a common management pool and a technology base. The amalgamation was done to ensure for the Group, benefits from scale economies both in domestic and export markets and enable it to fund investments required for aggressively building new categories.
In January 2000, in a historic step, the government decided to award 74 per cent equity in Modern Foods to HUL, thereby beginning the divestment of government equity in public sector undertakings (PSU) to private sector partners. HUL's entry into Bread is a strategic extension of the company's wheat business. In 2002, HUL acquired the government's remaining stake in Modern Foods.
In 2003, HUL acquired the Cooked Shrimp and Pasteurised Crabmeat business of the Amalgam Group of Companies, a leader in value added Marine Products exports.
HUL launched a slew of new business initiatives in the early part of 2000’s. Project Shakti was started in 2001. It is a rural initiative that targets small villages populated by less than 5000 individuals. It is a unique win-win initiative that catalyses rural affluence even as it benefits business. Currently, there are over 45,000 Shakti entrepreneurs covering over 100,000 villages across 15 states and reaching to over 3 million homes.
In 2002, HUL made its foray into Ayurvedic health & beauty centre category with the Ayush product range and Ayush Therapy Centres. Hindustan Unilever Network, Direct to home business was launched in 2003 and this was followed by the launch of ‘Pureit’ water purifier in 2004.
In 2007, the Company name was formally changed to Hindustan Unilever Limited after receiving the approval of share holders during the 74th AGM on 18 May 2007. Brooke Bond and Surf Excel breached the the Rs 1,000 crore sales mark the same year followed by Wheel which crossed the Rs.2,000 crore sales milestone in 2008.
On 17th October 2008 , HUL completed 75 years of corporate existence in India.
In January 2010, the HUL head office shifted from the landmark Lever House, at Backbay Reclamation, Mumbai to the new campus in Andheri (E), Mumbai.
On 15th November, 2010, the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan was officially launched in India at New Delhi.
In March, 2012 HUL’s state of the art Learning Centre was inaugurated at the Hindustan Unilever campus at Andheri, Mumbai.
In April, 2012, the Customer Insight & Innovation Centre (CiiC) was inaugurated at the Hindustan Unilever campus at Andheri, Mumbai
