By Monalisa Agbata
Unilever, the parent company of Unilever Nigeria Plc, has announced the unification of its Group legal structure under a single parent company, Unilever Plc.
This is contained in a press statement released by the company on November 30th, 2020 With this new legal structure, Unilever now trades with one market capitalization, one class of shares, and one global pool of liquidity, whilst also maintaining the Group’s listings on the Amsterdam, London, and New York stock exchanges.
According to Nils Andersen, Chairman of Unilever, “This is an important day for Unilever and we would like to thank our shareholders for their strong support of our Unification proposals, which gives us greater flexibility for strategic portfolio change, remove complexity, and further improve governance.
“There will be no change to the operations, locations, activities or staffing levels in either the Netherlands or the United Kingdom as a result of Unification. The headquarters of Unilever’s Foods & Refreshment Division will continue to be based in Rotterdam and the Home Care and Beauty & Personal Care Divisions will continue to be headquartered in the United Kingdom.”
Under this new legal structure, Unilever overseas maintains in control of the 74.03% ordinary shares of the Nigerian subsidiary.
With an allotment of 1,460,713,122 new Unilever Plc shares in the unification process, which represent 55.56% of the total number of Plc. shares, Unilever Plc’s total issued ordinary share capital today jumped to 2,629,243,772 ordinary shares of 3 1/9 pence each.
In line with the unification, the existence of Unilever NV therefore terminates on November 29, 2020.
Investors on the London Stock Exchange, Euronext Amsterdam, and the New York Stock Exchange, can trade in new Unilever Plc shares from November, 30, 2020. The new Unilever Plc shares has been enlisted to the Premium Listing segment of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and will be traded on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market for listed securities as “ULVR”.