Unilever Cranks It Up: Fool by Numbers

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On Feb. 8, Motley Fool Income Investor pick Unilever (NYSE: UL) released fourth-quarter earnings for the period ended Dec. 31.

• Net sales of the company increase by 7%, thanks to positive impact of foreign exchange rate.
• Sales grew globally, with a 1% increase in Europe, a 3.7% increase in America, and a 7.7% increase in Asia.
• The company forecasts its underlying sales growth to be within 3%-5% in 2007.
• Operating margins are expected to increase by 13.6% for fiscal 2007.
• Unilever is a four-star stock in our CAPS community intelligence service. To add your opinion to the database, join the service for free today!

(Figures in millions, except per-share data)

Income Statement Highlights

	Q4 2006	Q4 2005	Change
Sales	$12,497.0	$11,680.0	7.0%
Net Profit	$1,153.0	$814.0	41.6%
EPS	$0.36	$0.25	44.0%
Diluted Shares	2,972.5	3,006.9	(1.1%)

Get back to basics with a look at the income statement.

Margin Checkup

	Q4 2006	Q4 2005	Change*
Operating Margin	11.0%	10.2%	0.8
Net Margin	9.2%	7.0%	2.3

*Expressed in percentage points.

Margins are the earnings engine. See how they work.

Balance Sheet Highlights

Assets	Q4 2006	Q4 2005	Change
Cash + ST Invest.	$1,368.0	$1,811.0	(24.5%)
Accounts Rec.	$5,649.0	$5,719.0	(1.2%)
Inventory	$5,001.0	$4,863.0	2.8%

Liabilities	Q4 2006	Q4 2005	Change
Accounts Payable	$10,449.0	$9,742.0	7.3%
Long-Term Debt	$5,583.0	$7,645.0	(27.0%)

Learn the ways of the balance sheet.

Cash Flow Highlights

	2006	2005	Change
Cash From Ops.	$5,657.0	$5,416.0	4.4%
Capital Expenditures	$1,171.0	$1,011.0	15.8%
Free Cash Flow	$4,486.0	$4,405.0	1.8%

Find out why Fools always follow the money.

Related Companies:

• Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT)
• Groupe Danone (NYSE: DA)
• Archer-Daniels-Midland (NYSE: ADM)
• General Mills (NYSE: GIS)
• H.J. Heinz (NYSE: HNZ)

Related Foolishness:

• Leave It Up to Unilever
• The Best Stock to Own
• Heinz Bottles Recent Gains

Unilever, Kraft Foods, and H.J. Heinz are Income Investor recommendations. To see what other companies have been recommended to subscribers of the market-beating newsletter, take a free 30-day trial today.

Fool by Numbers is designed to give you the raw earnings information in a timely fashion, putting all the numbers you need in one easy-to-read place. But at The Motley Fool, we believe numbers tell only part of the story, so check Fool.com for more of our in-depth discussion of what the numbers mean. This data has been provided by Netscribes. To provide feedback on this article, please click on the "feedback" button below.