By Dominic Chopping

Unilever will demerge its ice cream business and list it in Amsterdam, London and New York, ending months of speculation over how the company would move ahead with previously announced plans to separate the business.

The consumer-goods giant announced plans to carve out the business nearly 12 months ago as part of Chief Executive Hein Schumacher's plan to inject growth into the group by focusing on fewer things and concentrating on businesses that share manufacturing and distribution systems. Ice cream was singled out as it has a different operating model to the rest of the group.

Unilever's ice cream business--which includes the Ben & Jerry's, Magnum and Wall's brands--generated turnover of 8.3 billion euros ($8.62 billion) in 2024.

Unilever said its group underlying sales grew 4.0% in the fourth quarter as price rises remained moderate and shoppers continued buying more of the company's brands. The result was slightly lower than the 4.1% increase expected by analysts in a company-compiled consensus.

The consumer-goods industry as a whole is trying to move back to selling more goods after several years of high inflation, that resulted in growth coming from pricing. The likes of Unilever, Nestle and Danone all raised prices to pass on inflation-driven cost increases, but with inflation now under control, they are focusing on volume-led growth.

Unilever said the volume of goods sold in the fourth quarter rose 2.7%, shy of the 3.0% analysts had expected, while pricing increased 1.3% on the year. Analysts had expected prices to increase 1%.

The company expects to report 2025 underlying sales growth within its typical range of 3% to 5%, but it cautioned that market growth at the start of the year will likely be subdued, before it accelerates during the year.

Prices are expected to rise through the year as commodity costs increase, and it expects a more balanced split in its sales growth between volume and price.

The underlying operating margin this year is expected to register a modest improvement from the 18.4% in 2024, it said.

Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 13, 2025 03:06 ET (08:06 GMT)

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