Unilever ends joint Anglo-Dutch structure to set up single London base in U-turn on scrapped Holland HQ debacle

Unilever, the Ben & Jerry's to Dove soaps giant, today said it would be ending its joint Anglo-Dutch structure and will unify its headquarters in London.

The move comes as a total U-turn on its previous plan to move to Holland, which was dropped in 2018 after howls of protest from UK shareholders.

The debacle - sparked by a takeover approach by Kraft-Heinz the previous year - was seen as a major blunder by then-chairman Marijn Dekkers and fellow Dutchman Paul Polman, the chief executive.

Now under the leadership of chairman Nils Andersen and chief executive Alan Jope, Unilever has concluded the opposite plan will be more effective.

The multinational which is one of the biggest companies on the FTSE-100 Index does not want to come out of the coronavirus crisis with its old-fashioned dual structure, which makes it far more cumbersome to carry out takeovers or demergers funded by shares.

In a rationale sparking speculation of big takeover deals to come, the group said: "Such flexibility is even more important as we anticipate the increasingly dynamic business environment that the covid-19 pandemic will create."

It will also make it simpler to pursue demergers such as the potential split-off of its tea business, which it is mulling as part of a review. Such a move has proved hard due to the complex dual-headed legal structure.

Unilever had similar problems with its Flora and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spreads operation, which it eventually sold in 2017, but only after a complex internal process.

Graeme Pitkethly, the finance director who fronted much of the failed effort to persuade shareholders to approve the last plan, told the Evening Standard the board was "just being practical".

He stood by the previous, abandoned, plan, saying that the Dutch portion of the Unilever shares made up 55% of the ownership, and was more actively traded by investors.

"It was always a finely balanced decision," he said. "But what it is all about is the big plan of modernising our structure which has been in place for 90 years. This will level out the playing field for us to compete with our peers. That was why the board continued to work on it.

"Now we will be able to have a better crack at future success if we can do what the companies we compete against do," he said.