Currency Comments: Unilever, Mastercard

Unilever

Unilever(UN Quote), the Dutch-British maker of Lipton teas, Dove soaps and other popular brands of food and personal-care products, blamed exchange rates for lower profitability in the fourth quarter and the full year.

"Underlying sales growth of 7.4% was partly offset by movements in exchange rates (4.8%)" for 2008, the company said in a statement. Growth in 2008 operating profit was only 1% at current exchange rates, but rose 6% after adjusting for currency fluctuations.

Unilever also said a decline in its fourth-quarter operating margin was "exacerbated by adverse currency movements."

Unilever reported a loss of 1.7 billion euros from "currency retranslation" in its statement of recognized income and expense for 2008, compared with 413 million euros in 2007.

Mastercard

Mastercard (MA Quote), the Purchase, N.Y.-based credit card issuer, specifically blamed the U.S. dollar and Brazil's real for weaker revenue growth.

"Currency fluctuations (driven by movement of the euro and the Brazilian real relative to the U.S. dollar) tempered net revenue growth by 3.5 percentage points for the quarter," Mastercard said in a statement.

The company reported $175.0 million as "cumulative foreign currency translation adjustments" among liabilities on its balance sheet at the end of 2008 compared with $216.6 million at the end of 2007.