Unilever established its first subsidiary in India in 1931 and named it Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company. Two other subsidiaries were subsequently opened: Lever Brothers India Limited in 1933, and United Traders Limited in 1935. These three subsidiaries merged in November 1956 and formed the Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL). HUL offered 10% of its stakes to the public while 52.1% of HUL is owned by Unilever.
Since the beginning of HUL’s inception, the company has responded with vigor to the growing stimuli of the Indian economic growth. In fact, the company has had major corporate decisions that led to many diversifications, mergers and acquisitions in line with the public’s aspirations and opinions.
But HUL’s remarkable growth was not really significant until 1991 when the Indian government started to liberalize the nation’s economic climate. The government started to deregulate certain industries and gave the Indian economic players to explore as many business opportunities as possible without fear of constraints of supply. The deregulation also encouraged companies to acquire, merger and form alliances with other players.
One of HUL’s first mergers was with Tata Oil Mills Company on April 1, 1993. The merger was one of the most talked about mergers in the history of the Indian economy. The merger was followed by another merger with Tata’s Lakme Limited. The 50:50 merger created the Lakme Unilever Limited, a company that would market Lakme’s cosmetics and other products that would deem fit for the merger. In 1998, Lakme divested its interest in the merger and sold all its stakes to HUL.
Some of the other joint ventures entered by HUL was with the US-based Kimberly-Clark Corporation in 1994. This merger was followed by HUL’s expansion in Nepal when it opened the Unilever Nepal Limited to sell HUL’s products in the Nepali market.
Another major merger was the one with Brooke Bond Lipton India Limited, owner of several popular food and beverages brand, on January 1, 1996. In 1998, HUL also merged with Ponds (India) Limited (PIL) and started a significant economic base in specialty products and personal products in India.
A historic event in the Indian economy happened in January 2000 when the government decided to award 74% of its equity in Modern Foods to HUL. This was just the beginning of some divestments made by the government because in 2002, HUL purchased the government’s remaining stakes in Modern Foods. The acquisition marked HUL’s expansion in the wheat business.
HUL also embarked on value added marine products when it purchased the Cooked Shrimp and Pasteurized Crabmeat owned by the Amalgam Group of Companies in 2003.
But HUL’s most remarkable achievement was Project Shakti launched in 2001. It is an initiative that would target communities with population of less than 5,000 people. The residents will have the opportunity to become entrepreneurs, an initiative that would catalyze rural affluence. There are over 45,000 Shakti businessmen in more than 100,000 Indian villages in 15 states representing more than 3 million homes.
HUL was formally named Hindustan Unilever Limited in 2007.