The Lemon Fool

An article by John Kingham on ULVR, might be of interest to holders.

https://www.ukvalueinvestor.com/2019/03 ... a1c21aa007

The link above takes you to a page where the article can be downloaded as a pdf.

I think the last paragraph sums up well the two opinions this thread will (perhaps inevitably) attract ... (My own views on what caveats can be put around buying/adding lower yielders like ULVR are known already I think - I won't repeat!)

Although I wouldn't buy Unilever at its
current price, I would be quite happy
to hold at current levels and I think the
shares are far from overvalued. They're
not super cheap, but they are perhaps
slightly cheap. So, is Unilever still a nobrainer
for dividend investors? I think
it probably is, but investors shouldn't
expect the sort of 15% annualised returns
achieved over the last decade.

• Underlying sales grew 3.1% with 1.2% from volume and 1.9% from price
• Underlying sales in emerging markets grew 5.0%
• Turnover decreased 1.6% driven by the disposal of spreads
• Quarterly dividend increased by 6% to €0.4104 per share

https://www.unilever.com/Images/ir-q1-2 ... 419_en.pdf

Full RNS here; https://www.investegate.co.uk/unilever- ... 00055575W/

Thanks Ian,

The announced converted dividend amounts to:

35.46p payable on the 2nd June
Ex dividend 2nd May

Gawabsky

A very attractive dividend increase (and sustainable I would think)

Dod

I might even top up my holdings next week. A solid base for my HYP.

Ian.

idpickering wrote:I might even top up my holdings next week. A solid base for my HYP.

ULVR represents 10% of my dividend growth portfolio and c. 11-12% of my ordinary dividend income. Nice.

Best wishes

Mark.

ADrunkenMarcus wrote:

idpickering wrote:I might even top up my holdings next week. A solid base for my HYP.

ULVR represents 10% of my dividend growth portfolio and c. 11-12% of my ordinary dividend income. Nice.

Best wishes

Mark.

Less so for me, they account for 2.8% in capital value terms of my 31 share HYP.

Ian.

ADrunkenMarcus wrote:

idpickering wrote:I might even top up my holdings next week. A solid base for my HYP.

ULVR represents 10% of my dividend growth portfolio and c. 11-12% of my ordinary dividend income. Nice.

Best wishes

Mark.

Mark - I have been focusing on shares with a good history of growing income, ULVR ticks that box.
Ian 3% yield too low for me to add in my HYP. I hold since 2009 when they were available for about 4%, I prefer to add at above the portfolio average, these days that's around 5% so no more ULVR for me, a 6% increase in income is welcome though - currency rates will muddle that a bit.

kempiejon wrote: a 6% increase in income is welcome though - currency rates will muddle that a bit.

Unilever have announced that the PLC dividend will be 35.46p. That represents an increase of 5.5% over the last dividend. Suits me very well and whilst the yield is still modest it is I think reliable.

I have neither bought nor sold since 2000 when I inherited them from my late wife. She had held them since about 1992. Shares like Unilever should simply be bought and left alone. They are comfortably my biggest holding and I should trim them but I see no reason to do so.

Dod

kempiejon wrote:
Ian 3% yield too low for me to add in my HYP. I hold since 2009 when they were available for about 4%, I prefer to add at above the portfolio average, these days that's around 5% so no more ULVR for me, a 6% increase in income is welcome though - currency rates will muddle that a bit.

I do get where you're coming from, although not the highest of yielders, I'm with Dod on this one though. I stupidly dropped them some months back, and very quickly realised my error, and bought back in.

Ian.

idpickering wrote:I do get where you're coming from, although not the highest of yielders, I'm with Dod on this one though. I stupidly dropped them some months back, and very quickly realised my error, and bought back in.
Ian.

Buy on the dips (not very HYPish). Mr Market occasionally has a sale. I bought a tranche in February, when they fell below 4000. They're up 13%. Never a high-yielder, but at a time when the UK seems hellbent on scuppering its own economy, sacrificing some yield in exchange for globally-diversified foreign currency earnings seems sensible.

This from TMF, penned by Harvey Jones;

Here’s why I’d buy the Unilever share price right this minute

Is global household goods giant Unilever (LSE: ULVR) the best buy-and-hold stock on the FTSE 100? It has few serious rivals for that title and GA Chester says he would happily hold it for 20 years or more.

Emerging success

Every time I have looked at the £119bn group, it seems to be doing pretty well for itself (and its investors). That is also the case today. It is up 3.35% at time of writing after defying low expectations to post underlying sales growth of 3.1% for the first quarter, driven by a strong emerging markets performance of 5%. Developed market sales grew just 0.3%, which may tell you a lot about the direction in which the world is heading.

Turnover fell by 1.6%, although that was mostly down to the disposal of its spreads division. CEO Alan Jope hailed “a solid start that keeps us on track for our full-year expectations”, with growth balanced between volume and price.

https://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2019/0 ... is-minute/

The annual Unilever dividend will now pay my buildings and contents insurance direct debit when I retire so that's one more thing I don't have to worry about

Cheers, OLTB.

kempiejon wrote:Mark - I have been focusing on shares with a good history of growing income, ULVR ticks that box.
Ian 3% yield too low for me to add in my HYP. I hold since 2009 when they were available for about 4%, I prefer to add at above the portfolio average, these days that's around 5% so no more ULVR for me, a 6% increase in income is welcome though - currency rates will muddle that a bit.

I think I got about a 4% dividend yield when I bought in two tranches in April and October 2013. For the first few years the dividend in £ was actually held back as it strengthened against the Euro; since 2016, the opposite has happened. The quarterly payments work nicely. They are growing in Asia and the future growth will come from the emerging world.

Best wishes

Mark.

This from TMF, written by Edward Sheldon;

This is why I plan to hold FTSE 100 stock Unilever for 20 years

When discussing Unilever (LSE: ULVR) shares, one of the first things that often comes up is the group’s world-class portfolio of brands. Believe it or not, its brands are present in 98% of households across the UK.

Yet I’m not sure people realise just how powerful the group’s portfolio actually is – it really is quite extraordinary when you take a closer look. Here’s a look at how many Unilever products I use on a day-to-day basis.

Morning routine

Let’s start with my typical morning. One of the first things I do when I wake up every morning is make myself a cup of tea. My tea brand of choice? The legendary PG Tips – a Unilever brand. After my tea, I take a quick shower and use Unilever owned-Dove Men shower gel to freshen up, and then follow this up by spraying on some Dove Men deodorant. At this stage of the day, I haven’t even started work yet and I’ve already used three Unilever products.

https://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2019/0 ... -20-years/

2019 First Half Year Results; https://www.investegate.co.uk/unilever- ... 00166414G/

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:

"We profoundly believe that sustainability leads to a better financial top and bottom line."

His assertion is demonstrably false. His words display complete and cretinous lack of understanding of sustainability, and basic economics.

The most sustainable society on Earth is that of the uncontacted Sentinelese hunter-gatherers.

By his logic they should have a lot of profit and fabulous financials.

Do they?

This is an example of fatuous greenwash from Unilever.it misleads the listener that sustainability is desirable and possible in the context of a capitalistic industrial society. It is not. This is readily demonstrated by basic physics: if we model the economy as a dissipative structure, a heat engine, converting energy into goods and services that people need, increased output is only possible via increased energy flow. That is basic thermodynamics.

How then do we increase energy flow, except via increasing consumption of fossil fuels?

If you answer is 100% renewables, you miss what the renewables are constructed from. If we want an arbitrary increase in energy, that necessitates an arbitrary fossil use to produce that low quality power.