Monday, September 30, 1985/The Battalion/Page 9
World and Nation
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SHOE
by Jeff MacNelly
Unilever attempting takeover
Company virtually unknown
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Unilever, the An-
glo-Dutch company that has been
pursuing a hostile bid of Richard-
son-Vicks Inc., is relatively unknown
to the public even though it is the
world’s largest manufacturer of con
sumer products and the 18th largest
industrial company on the globe.
But its products are familiar. Per
haps you brush your teeth with its
Close-Up toothpaste, wash your face
with its Dove soap, use its All deter
gent to do your laundry, and drink
its Lipton tea.
Although most of Unilever’s sales
throughout the world come from
foods, detergents and personal
products, the company is also in
volved in chemicals, paper, plastics,
packaging, animal feeds, transport
and tropical plantations.
In addition, UAC International,
one of Unilever’s largest subsidia
ries, has substantial interests in Af
rica and other parts of the world in
diverse industrial ventures.
Unilever, which employs about
320,000 people and operates in
about 75 countries, had a profit of
396 million British pounds, or $564
million at the current exchange rate,
on sales of 16.17 billion pounds, or
$23 billion, last year.
Sixty-five percent of Unilever’s
sales are in Europe and about 14
percent are in the United States.
The remaining sales are spread
around the world.
The British arm of the company is
called Unilever PLC and is based in
London. The Dutch arm, Unilever
NV, is located in Rotterdam, the Ne
therlands.
The two operate as much as possi
ble as single companies. They also
operate under an agreement that
equalizes the dividends paid to the
shareholders of both.
Floris A. Maljers is chairman of
Unilever NV and vice chairman of
Unilever PLC. Sir Kenneth Durham
is chairman of Unilever PLC and
vice chairman of Unilever N V.
Unilever U.S. Inc., Unilever NY’s
New York-based American subsid
iary, owns Thomas J. Lipton Inc.,
which makes foods and beverages;
Lever Brothers Co., which makes
detergents and other cleaning prod
ucts, personal products, margarine
and some other foods; and National
Starch and Chemical Corp., a maker
of adhesives, specialty starches, res
ins and other chemical products.
The U.S. subsidiary said Thurs
day it was raising to $60 per share its
top offer for all of the common stock
of Richardson-Vicks, whose man
agement has opposed the takeover
bid.
Unilever said it was boosting its
previous top offer from $56 a snare
provided that the offer was ap
proved by the Richardson-Vicks
board. It said its offer would remain
at $48 a share if the Richardson-
Vicks board failed to approve the of
fer.
Richardson-Vicks and members
of the founding family also have
bought sizeable numbers of shares
of the company’s stock. Family mem
bers and trusts they control said this
past week that they own 36 percent
of the shares outstanding.
As a result of the company’s buy
back efforts, Richardson-Vicks has
about 17.6 million shares outstand
ing, making the value of the bid at
$60 a share worth about $1.06 bil
lion, compared with $985 million at
previous top price.
Unilever’s offer is contingent on
51 percent of Richardson-Vicks’
shares being tendered to Unilever
for purchase. However, a two-thirds
vote of shares is required for appro
val of any merger.
Richardson-Vicks’ consumer
products are well-known, too.
Among them are Vicks cold reme
dies and Vidal Sassoon hair prod
ucts.
Rioting spills
into white areas
of South Africa
Associated Press
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
— A mob burned a black man to
death Sunday in the second straight
day of clashes between rival black
groups near Durban, and anti-apart
heid violence spilled into white areas
for the third day in a row, police
said.
An explosion that police believed
was caused by a bomb went off in the
men’s room of a hotel near Durban
where about 150 black youngsters
were guests qt a “children’s day,” but
no one was injured.
The death toll from Saturday’s
street battles between rival black
groups in Umlazi was unclear. Police
said four people died, but the inde
pendent South African Press Asso
ciation reported six deaths.
Police said they killed an unidenti
fied black man throwing a gasoline
bomb in Dordecht, a small eastern
Cape Province town 298 miles south
of Johannesburg.
Police have nearly quelled 13
months of rioting in the black and
mixed-race townships, but whites
have been attacked in the last three
days in Johannesburg’s suburbs,
near Cape Town, East London on
the Indian Ocean shore and near
Port Elizabeth.
The African National Congress,
the banned black guerrilla group
trying to overthrow the white gov
ernment by force, broadcast appeals
from radio stations in black-ruled
Africa telling blacks to spread unrest
into white neighborhoods.
More than 700 people have per
ished since Sept. 3, 1984, but only
seven have been white. None were
killed in white areas, although two
whites were killed in separate inci
dents while driving near black com
munities.
New researcher team
shuns traditional data
Associated Press
NF.W YORK — When anthro
pologists venture into the Ameri
can marketplace, the notes from
their journals might surprise
even Margaret Mead.
Consider the finding that
Southern men take pride in their
pot bellies.
Steve Barnett got his doctorate
in anthropology at Chicago Uni
versity, then taught at Princeton,
Brown and MIT before joining
the consulting firm of Planme-
trics.
Barnett has assembled a team
in New York of five anthropolo
gists, a sociologist, a social psy
chologist and a statistician who
are called in for the tough jobs,
when traditional market research
fails. Where other marketers use
focus groups, direct questioning
and opinion polls, Planmetrics
uses direct observation.
The technique, which can cost
anywhere from $5,000 to
$300,000, appears to be working.
For example, a traditional pub
lic opinion survey among mainte
nance workers for a public utility
found the vast majority approved
of nuclear power. So the com
pany decided to use the workers
to “talk up” nuclear power with
its customers.
When the idea didn’t work,
Planmetrics put a few anthropol
ogists in the same uniforms as the
repair crews to find out what was
going wrong.
“We discovered that even a
pro-nuclear employee did not
take a pro-nuclear stand with a
customer,” Barnett said.
Planmetrics later was asked to
determine what features made
certain styles of casual jackets
popular with men. “We felt if you
looked at how they tried them on,
you’d find out what’s important
to them,” Barnett said, so the
team put video cameras behind
one-way mirrors in the mens’
clothing section.
The technique worked and the
client was satisfied, but it was one
irrelevant observation which fas
cinated Barnett: In Southern
stores, pot-bellied men would
choose jackets that looked too
tight, then turn sideways and ad
mire their bulging profiles.
“We discovered people were
quite proud of having grown that
belly,” Barnett said. “Rather than
get a looser jacket that would hide
it, they got one to show it off.”
What would you do
if you had $1
Associated Press
NEW YORK — In an era when
lotteries and sweepstakes are flou
rishing, it has become popular to
imagine oneself suddenly rich.
The rules of the game are simple:
Gather a few friends together, and
C rovide a sociable atmosphere. Play
egins when one member of the
party poses the question, “Well now,
what would you do if you had a mil
lion dollars?”
Recent times have tarnished the
fantasy somewhat. Thanks to infla
tion, $1 million in 1985 would be pa
thetically inadequate if you wanted
to provide yourself with proper
wealth. It would buy you no yachts,
no airplanes, no lifelong luxury.
With $1 million you could scarcely
afford a decent country estate in a
typical high-prestige locale. And you
would have nothing left over to pay
the upkeep and the utility bills.
Suppose you took a very cautious
approach, and invested your $1 mil
lion windfall in Treasury securities
or municipal bonds. That would give
you an annual aftertax income of
$80,000 or $90,000 — enough to
provide for a very comfortable, but
hardly sumptuous life.
You would presumably be free to
quit your job, buy a home computer,
and set out to write the novel or
dream up the great invention you
have always known was trapped in
the depths of your imagination.
Creativity might fail you, how
ever, if you spent a lot of time worry
ing about what the fluctuations of in
terest rates and the erosive ef fects of
inflation were doing to the value of
your bonds.
How best to use the $1 million,
then? Maybe invest it aggressively in
real estate, or stocks, or futures con
tracts, hoping to turn it into the $10
million or $20 million you would
need for a true life of ease.
Lfnless you have the right temper
ament, though, such a challenge
might be daunting. The record
shows that managing investments on
a large scale can be very stressful.
At this point in the conversation,
someone who is tiring of all the cau
tioning is likely to speak up. “If these
are the problems that come with $1
million,” he declares, “I’d love to
have them, compared to what I’ve
got now.”
“That’s not the point,” comes the
reply. “We’re not talking about
whether you’d like to have the
money, but what you would — and
could — actually do with it if you
had it.”
Picture This!
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822-9515
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HALF CENTURY HOUSE
Invites you to experience the casual
elegance that is Fish Richards, and enjoy
ROAST PRIME RIB OF BEEF
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on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Lunch Poor Richards Revenge Dinner
Mon-Fri Mon-Fri Mon-Sat
11:30-2:30 4:30-6:30 5:00-10:30
PIANO BAR NIGHTLY
Featuring Jim Williams and Dave Ellis
5:00-6:30 and 8:00-10:00
801 Welborn Rd., College Station 696-4118
SOCIETY OF
MANUFACTURING
ENGINEERS
SM6
Gen.Meeting Oct 3, 1985 at 6:00
p.m. in Fermier 305. Guest
Speaker Dr. Don Phillips on
FACTORY OF THE FUTURE
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