Hein Schumacher is hardly going to have to do much teasing to extract what Unilever’s shareholders want when he takes over as chief executive in July. Breaking the top line out of the funk it has been stuck in for the past decade is the clearest way to lift the FTSE 100 group’s market value.
True, underlying sales growth measured 9.2 per cent for the fourth quarter, ahead of what the market expected and far above the top-end of a target growth range of 3 per cent to 5 per cent. The big caveat? That all came from passing through rampant cost inflation to consumers via double-digit price increases on its vast stable of products, which range from Domestos bleach to Magnum ice cream.
