The Hindu Business Line : How HUL came to be

The name Unilever is itself an amalgam of two diverse cultures and businesses. Lever is the British part, mostly into what are now called fabric and personal wash products, while Margarine Uni was the European half, mostly in the vegetable shortening business, which evolved in India into Dalda, or vanaspati.

Incidentally, the earlier and more familiar name of the Indian company, Hindustan Lever, too is a combination of the two major companies that came together here. In 1888, Sunlight soap bars began the saga of the company that eventually has become HUL and ushered in packaged consumer and household goods. The 75 years now being celebrated refers only to the corporate history as a company registered in India, which dates back to the Unilever subsidiaries Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company (1931), later Lever Brothers India Ltd (1933) and United Traders Ltd (1935) A few brands of what were then known as toilet preparations, under names such as Erasmic and Atkinson and Gibbs SR came under the name of United Traders. You can date anyone who remembers using brands such as Vinolia White Rose soap and Atkinson’s shaving lotion; they must be well over 70 themselves.

Lifebuoy was seen as a twin of Sunlight soap and came in 1895. In fact, the basic soap was hardly any different, but it had the position of a carbolic soap, had that distinctive hospital smell and red colour that children were only too happy to grow out of when they graduated to the more pleasant and adult brands of toilet soap. The Levers’ famous brands were, even by the time the company was formed, known all over the country – Lux, Sunlight, Lifebuoy, Pears, and Vim. Vanaspati was launched in 1918 and the famous Dalda brand came to the market in 1937.

In 1956, the three subsidiaries of Unilever merged to form HLL. It offered 10 per cent of its equity to the Indian public, being the first among the foreign subsidiaries to do so. Unilever now holds 51.55 per cent equity in the company. The rest of the shareholding is distributed among about 380,000 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 Ltd 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) Ltd was incorporated.

Pond’s (India) Ltd had been present in India since 1947. It joined the Unilever fold through an international acquisition of Chesebrough Pond’s USA in 1986.

Source: Adapted from information on the Hindustan Unilever Web site

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