Unilever axes UK HQ and picks Netherlands

Unilever picks Rotterdam ahead of London for the corporate base, but Unilever shares were unaffected in early trade and 7,300 UK workers would be unaffected by the changes and its personal care and home care divisions will continue to be based in London.

Marijn Dekkers, the Chairman, said the changes would strengthen Unilever’s corporate governance and make it into a “simpler more agile and more focused” business with even more flexibility for mergers and acquisitions. Unilever said the decision reflected that the majority of its shares around 55 per cent, were in the Dutch arm of its business and that those trade with greater liquidity.

Unilever directors of dual British and Dutch holding companies met to finalise the landmark decision of bringing the curtain down on nearly a century of corporate history by axing its UK headquarters and consolidating its legal base in the Netherlands.

The third-largest company in the FTSE100 index with a market value of £113bn, Unilever – created in 1929 by the merger of Britain’s Lever Brothers and Margarine Unie of the Netherlands, which owns several of world’s best-known consumer goods brands, including Persil detergents, Dove Shampoo, Marmite and Magnum ice cream.

Paul Polman, the Dutch CEO of Unilever has been reviewing its dual corporate structure since unsolicited £115bn takeover bid from US-based food giant Kraft Heinz fell apart last year.

Unilever which employs 7, 500 people in the UK, with its main HQ at Victoria Embankment in Central London and 3,000 people work for the company in the Netherlands.