Unilever PLC (UL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Unilever PLC (NYSE:UL) H1 2023 Earnings Conference Call July 25, 2023 3:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Richard Williams - Head of Investor Relations

Hein Schumacher - Chief Executive Officer

Graeme Pitkethly - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Olivier Nicolai - Goldman Sachs

Rashad Kawan - Morgan Stanley

Jeff Stent - Exane

Warren Ackerman - Barclays

Celine Pannuti - JPMorgan

Guillaume Delmas - UBS

Tom Sykes - Deutsche Bank

Alicia Forry - Investec

Operator

Hello and welcome to Unilever's Half-1 [ph] 2023 Results Webcast. [Operator Instructions] We would like now to hand over to Richard Williams, Unilever's Head of Investor Relations, to begin the presentation.

Richard Williams

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Unilever's half year results update. All of today's webcast is available live, transcribed on the screen. First, can I draw your attention to the disclaimer relating to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures.

Now to start today, our new CEO, Hein Schumacher, will share some initial impressions and then he will hand over to Graeme to update you on our performance and to take you through the results. Graeme will also share the outlook. We will then leave time to take your questions.

With that said, it's my pleasure to hand over to you, Hein.

Hein Schumacher

Thank you, Richard and good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today. I'm Hein Schumacher and by way of introduction, I thought I would share a little bit about myself and why I joined Unilever and some of my first impressions. I took up the position of CEO of Unilever 3 weeks ago, so it's still early days. Why Unilever? Well, look, firstly, it is a great industry and I've spent my whole career in or around consumer goods and in rolls that took me from Europe to North America, China and Southeast Asia.

And I love the speed with which you see results, the intense competition in consumer goods, the importance of quality and innovation and the fact that everything needs to come together seamlessly to succeed. It all needs to tick and tie. And the inescapable truth that, in the end, obviously, the consumer has a final say. And across my career, I've accumulated a lot of experiences which are relevant to the significant opportunity we have had and that is to step up our performance and realize the full potential of Unilever. And I am in no doubt that Unilever's strong fundamentals give us an excellent platform from which to do it.