Unilever Management Discusses Q2 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Unilever (UL)

Q2 2012 Earnings Call

July 26, 2012 3:00 am ET

Executives

Raoul Jean-Marc Sidney Huet - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director

Paulus Gerardus Josephus Maria Polman - Chief Executive Officer and Director

Analysts

Celine AH Pannuti - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division

Marco Gulpers - ING Groep N.V., Research Division

Harold Thompson - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Robert Waldschmidt - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Martin John Deboo - Investec Securities (UK), Research Division

Jeremy Fialko - Redburn Partners LLP, Research Division

Presentation

Raoul Jean-Marc Sidney Huet

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Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to Unilever's Second Quarter and Half Year Results Presentation, being presented to you on the eve of the London 2012 Olympics. It's actually a great time to be in Sunny London and we wish everybody well in what promises to be a really exciting period for the city and hopefully for the country as well. With all the noise around the global economic and political situation, I believe it's important to not lose sight of the essential principles that underpin the Olympic Games, which is actually to unite the peoples of the world through fierce but friendly competition. May it long last. Today, we will keep it brief so that we can get to the questions and the discussions, which I know most of you value most. But let me start with the usual disclaimer relating to the forward-looking statements and the non-GAAP measures.

Now before we talk about the results, let's briefly remind ourselves of the wider context in which we operate. A further deterioration of the macroeconomic climate, increased volatility in commodities and currencies that frankly doesn't seem to get less and last but not least, the competitive environment that remains challenging despite other noises out there to the contrary sometimes. Now increasingly, the continued high level of economic and political uncertainty further fuels an already concerning macroeconomic picture. It is fair to say that following the 2008 crisis unprecedented policy support has not resulted in the desired levels of growth and the enormous deleveraging we've been always talking about and we see now happening, especially in the developed world, is starting to dampen market growth and consumption.

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