Excessive Warranty Cost Challenges Tesla Motors

The autotech giant has to slash down its warranty cost in order to make the current year profitable.

Tesla Motors Inc. CEO, Elon Musk has announced to the investors that the luxury EV maker is likely to put an end to burning cash and post profit this year. In order to be in line with the pledge it has taken the company has to circumvent the cost associated with the problems in the quality of the vehicles.

Since 2014, the Palo Alto, Calif. firm has been corralling its average cost of warranty –or repair cot –per premium electric vehicle. According to the analysis of the company data done by Reuters, it is still spending twice as much as Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. Also, the luxury electric car maker’s warranty costs exceed that of Daimler AG’s –the German based maker of Mercedes-Benz luxury cars.

Automakers including Tesla haven’t adopted the practice of segregating the warranty costs but the companies do provide in the financial statement the number of vehicles delivered and the amount spent as warranty and other accruals – which represent the money put aside for future probable use.

According to the data analysis carried out last year by Reuters based on the information provided by the company in its annual report, it was deduced that the company spent $1,403 per vehicle on actual repairs and kept $2,036 on hold for likely future repairs for the vehicles it sold in 2015.

In comparison with the auto-tech giant, General Motors spent around $400 per sold vehicle on warranty repairs and put $332 for future work. Meanwhile, German based Daimler spent close to $970 per vehicle and put $1,294 on hold.

Since the company will be stepping into the production of Model 3 sedan, next year, therefore it has to come up with ways to address the matters like quality control and warranty costs.

In February, Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer told analysts that the company’s vehicles have become more reliable which has slashed down the warranty cost for the company. He added, “That actually has a cash impact when the cars show up less at the service centers.”

Tesla Motors is scheduled to post its quarterly results on May 4 and the analysts will be closely scrutinizing whether the company managed to have positive cash flow for the year.

At the market close on Thursday, Tesla Motors stock stood at a price of $247.71. The 52-week range of the stock is $141 to $287.

Exxon Mobil's Credit Ratings Downgraded

S&P has downgraded the oil giant's credit rating as the company was having difficulty in managing funds

For the first time ever in 70 years, Exxon Mobil Corp.’s top-tier credit rating has been slashed down by the Standard & Poor’s. The move was taken on Tuesday as the company is having difficulty in funding projects and expanding higher returns –in form of cash –to the shareholders due to the growing vortex of slumping crude prices.

McGraw Hill Financial Inc.’s unit S&P has brought down the oil giant’s prestigious “AAA” credit rating to “AA+” –this demotion has left tech giant, Microsoft Corporation and drug maker Johnson & Johnson have now become the only companies to have the prestigious rating which, back in 1980s, was enjoyed by a large number of U.S. companies.

The ratings for Exxon is still as high as the S&P has set for the U.S. government bonds –which is largely considered as the world’s safest investment. Also, two other U.S. companies –Apple Inc. and General Electric Co. –have “AA+” rating from S&P.

No major impact was recorded on the Exxon stock which closed at $87.63 after going up by 0.34%.

The Irving, Texas firm, along with other energy companies, has been under immense pressure to pay back the money to the shareholders. Over the last decade, the company has spent around $210 billion on share buy-back; additionally, during the fourth quarter, it paid $3.6 billion –which ended up to be more than what the company had earned -in the form of share repurchases and dividends.

In February, when oil prices declined and come to half, the company announced that it is going for the buy-back in order to balance the dilution contrary to the general action of returning cash to shareholders.

Nevertheless, S&P has expressed that the world’s largest publicly traded oil company’s debt level, during the recent years, had doubled chiefly due to the growth projects which include, Papa New Guinea based liquefied natural gas export facilities, along with other items including dividends, with an overall spending which is ahead of cash flow.

The oil giant in a statement made no indication about the response it is intending to give for S&P’s ratings. A spokesperson of Exxon Mobil, Scott Silvestri has said that the demotion hasn’t affected the company’s ability to efficiently manage its financials.

The company stated that it appreciates its strong credit position and will strongly focus on building long-term shareholder value irrespective of the volatility of oil market.

The current downgrade wasn’t taken by surprise. Earlier, S&P had downgraded rival Chevron Corporation, in February and had warned Exxon that something similar could be carried out for the company in the future.

The demotion was faced by the company as it defends the accusations against it saying that it kept the public and the investors in dark regarding the climate change risk.

Qualcomm Might Lose Apple At Its Customer

 The world's largest chipmaker may lose potential business once the tech giant transition to rival chipmaker

Qualcomm Inc. shares have been tumbling at the stock market post the rumors that the world’s most valuable company, Apple Inc. is transitioning to some other supplier for getting the component that connects the iPhone to the Internet.

On Wednesday, the San Diego, Calif. firm reported its better than expected earnings –and EPS of $1.04 per share on a revenue of $5.54 billion. However the shares went down 2.5% when the company announced that it might suffer a potential business loss as the company’s prestigious client is considering entering into a contract with the rival.

Several analysts have speculated that the major client which Qualcomm is talking about is the Silicon Valley tech giant, Apple Inc. as according to Bloomberg, the world’s largest chipmaker has only two major clients; Apple and Samsung and since Samsung already has multiple suppliers therefore only Apple is left to have taken the decision of moving to another supplier.

Any switch which the tech giant made regarding the components used in the devices is likely to shake the industry. The chipmaker’s stock slumped down in after-hours trading after the CEO Steve Mollenkopf predicted the likely business loss. Cowen & Co.’s analyst Tim Arcuri along woth other analysts have projected that the Apple may be collaborating with Intel Corporation for the modem chips installed inside the iPhones.

The stock fell down to $50.80. Through Wednesday, however, the shares were up by almost 4.2%.

The CEO forecasted about the likely business loss however he did emphasize in front of analysts and the investors that the chipmaker has the potential of delivering high level profits even though the company’s customers may opt for rival suppliers.

But, the CEO couldn’t fully reassured the investors. Fund manager for Becker Capital Management –owner of Qualcomm stock –Sid Parakh said: “We think there is an element of investor expectation that they lose some business at Apple.”

A spokesman from Qualcomm stated that the company doesn’t intend to give any further insight into the matter except for what it has already told on the conference call. Moreover, Cupertino, Calif. firm didn’t comment on the matter when asked.

Several mobile phones maker generally make use of modem and processor which are usually manufactured by Qualcomm but the tech giant although does use third party manufactured modems which are the microchips used to ensure the connection of the phone to cellular networks but designs its own processors.

In other news, Apple Inc. stock has also entered bear market as the Qualcomm’s another announcement of decline in chips shipments has made the analysts to bring down their estimates of the iPhone sales.

McDonald's Impressive First Quarter Earnings

The fast food giant has posted better than expected earnings indicating the sustainability of the turnaround

For the consecutive third time, McDonald’s Corporation posted better than expected earnings highlighting that the turnaround which starts last year is manageable.

During the last year’s third quarter, the traits of the turnaround began to surface when the Golden Arches posted increase in same-store sale in two years and now it is evident that the CEO Steve Easterbrook will be able to put the company on the tracks of the profitable business.

Mr. Easterbrook has joined the company just a year ago and he pushed the organization to accelerate its operations, make improvement in the food, and simplify the menu. Back in October, when the company introduced “All-Day Breakfast Menu,” –one of the biggest menu change in years –then the analysts and the company too predicted the demand for the Egg Muffins to gradually diminish but contrary to the company’s beliefs the demand is still boosting the sales.

The CEO cited that it is not only the change in the menu which has made the turnaround of the company possible but the right strategies have also played a major role in generating favorable results of the company. The strategies included speeding up the service of the drive-through and improving the accuracy of the order. He added that the management team also look through the apparent minute detail in order to increase the overall efficiency which included enlarging the font size on order ticket so that the staff may clearly read consumer’s special orders.

Mr. Easterbrook also indicated that the staff’s higher wages at the outlets operated by the company along with the tuition assistance to all the workers transferred into employee low turnover which collaterally turn into better customer service. The Oak Brook, Illinois based organization is also training its employees to deliver faster. It is also motivating employees to offer a friendlier service to the employees.

On Friday, the CEO informed the investors that in the U.S., the customers are noticing visible difference. He said that the customer satisfaction went up by 6% in comparison with the prior year’s same period. The organization has introduced multiple offers for the customers including its two for $2 menu earlier this year, in January. The offering couldn’t generate much revenue for the company and afterwards it introduced two for $5 which proved to be another trigger for increasing the sales in the first quarter. But the analysts have cautioned that the menu offering is not same throughout the entire outlets as some markets are offering the deal for 2 for $4 and 2 for $3.5 while at several locations, the menu includes the breakfast items.

At the U.S. outlets –opened for more than a year –the sales went up by 5.4% outperforming the growth of 4.6% and went slightly down in comparison with the last year’s 5.7%. In the Chinese market, where the company has struggled, the fast food giant was able to have better than expected growth, during the first quarter. Across the world, the same-store sales jumped 6.2%.

Mr. Easterbrook cited that later this year, the largest fast food chain will focus on a long-term strategic plan which will not let the company’s growth to falter.

Alibaba Diversifies Portfolio With Joint Venture In Online Health Insurance

Alibaba is entering the Chinese online health insurance industry through its affilitate Ali Health

Alibaba Health Information Technology, which is Alibaba’s subsidiary listed in Hong Kong, is entering the Chinese online medical insurance industry through its new joint project. On April 21, 2016, Ali Health announced in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it would sign a joint venture contract with six other organizations, ranging from pharmaceutical makers and insurers in China.

The Chinese online retailer’s medical subsidiary also said government of China hopes the commercial medical insurance claims would contribute to a larger part of the total health spending of the country by 2020. The affiliate presently provides enforcement information, recall and product tracking services to different authorities with its Piats operation.

In 2015, the company decided to shift the operations of its electronic pharmacy organization to Ali Health from its business-to-consumer market for a sum of $2.5 billion of newly issued convertible bonds and issued shares.

The agreement was cancelled after the subsidiary was unable to obtain the needed regulatory permission last week of the last month. Alibaba, which announced its net loss worth $12.89 million in 2015, hasn’t given a renewed application for the planned takeover.  

Alibaba is owner of South China Morning Post, whose new head Jack Ma, has committed that he will not intervene in the publication’s editorial decisions, in an apparent effort to address concerns regarding the independence of the paper under his organization.

Critics have raised questions regarding the intentions of the web retailer for the newspaper, speculating it might be an effort to purchase influence or toe the government of China’s line in the semi-autonomous former British colony that enjoys freedom of press.

While being interviewed by SCMP, Jack Ma told he had a feeling that there was "all sorts of misunderstandings" in the global world’s perception of the state. He added that media didn’t draw an entire picture.

"The paper's China coverage should be objective, reasonable and impartial," he said. "We should let our readers see China from more angles and perspectives." The company finalized its $266 million takeover of the publication, which was announced in December.

"I have neither the experience nor desire to interfere with the newsroom operation. I will not take part in the editorial decision-making," Jack said, keeping my right to contribute as a reader.

Following the acquisition announcement, executive vice chairman of Alibaba wrote to readers of SCMP in a letter that the significance and economic rise of China "is too important for there to be a singular thesis."

Last month, a survey showed that residents of the Chinese special administrative region and journalists believe that the conditions of freed of press in HK for a second consecutive deteriorated in the last year, apparently reflecting general uneasiness in the region regarding the control by the Chinese government.

Jack, talking to the publication, stated the newspaper must be "objective, reasonable and impartial" and shouldn’t report with prejudice or preconceptions. 

Apple Inc. Ends Talks With Daimler

The tech giant has been having talks with the German automakers over the production of its secret electric car

According to German news site Handelsblatt, Daimler and BMW have ended the negotiations with Apple Inc. over the rumored electric car, dubbed as Project Titan. Although the tech giant hasn’t openly admitted about developing an electric car however the sources close to the matter has hinted about the ongoing project every now and then.

The tech giant had needed a reliable partner for working on the anticipated project of self-autonomous car and that is why it had been having talks with the German automaker giants. However, the negotiations ended in a deadlock over few disagreements between the automakers and the tech titan.

The disagreement sprung over the control of power and data. Where Apple wanted the vehicle to be built into its own cloud software, the German automakers had strong stance regarding the customers’ data protection.

Last year, representatives of Apple had visited BMW’s headquarters –situated in Munich –to tour the company’s factory –situated in Leipzig –to look at the procedures involved in creating the company’s i3 electric car. It was rumored then that the iPhone maker intended to use BMW i3 as the premise for its electric car project. But, subsequently, within few months, the Silicon Valley tech titan and BMW talks decelerated. Whereas, Daimler –the company involved in manufacturing the prestigious Mercedes-Benz –ended most recently.

Apple has not officially announced anything regarding this current ongoing process. But the company’s executives have never denied the possibility of an electric car. In fact, when the tech giant’s core product’s, iPhone, sales declined, the company urged the investors and analysts that it has other plans of generating the revenue. On Apple’s 40^th anniversary, Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak, in an interview to CNBC, had expressed that although the market for smartphones have been saturated the company can come a long way by adopting to the new technologies which include augmented and virtual reality and self-autonomous cars.

Moreover, Magna –a Canadian-Australian-based automotive manufacturer is actively involved in the development of Apple’s car. Rumors have it that few of the executives from Apple have visited Austria to hold talks with Magna Steyr and up till no such news of the talks getting disrupted have been come to the surface.

According to Frankfurter Allgemeine –a German publication –the Cupertino, Calif. firm has established a “secret lab” in Berlin where it has hired a small team of around 15-20 engineers who had previously worked in German car companies. Additionally, hundreds of employees in California as well are secretly working on the project.

The tech leviathan has also been searching for the car executives in the US as well. Recently, it poached former vice president of Tesla’s vehicle engineering, Chris Porritt. The move came after around four months the departure of Steve Zadesky from the company who had once been leading the Project Titan. When Zadesky was departing, sources familiar to the matter has said that the head was under immense pressure of speeding up the project which apparently couldn’t be completed in the given deadline. The tech giant is said to complete the project in 2019 or 2020.

Tesla Faces Strong Criticism For Faults In Production

The American EV maker has found out that its Model X has been adversely affected by mechanical problems

Anne Carter had her Tesla Model X SUV for a few days before the electric automobile worth $138,000 was adversely affected by a mechanical malfunction. In the morning, the falcon-wing doors of the vehicle would not open, as she got ready to drive her children to school.

During a very essential time for the company, its well-to-do consumers are not only confronting difficulties with the rear doors of Model X but also other matters, including a seat latch the organization has recalled. Whether the company can resolve these affordable version’s glitches and avoid them in the upcoming times will be significant to prove that it can sell automobiles in huge quantities without facing a hiccup.

The company states it is rapidly solving its production problems and enhancing its capability to bring high-quality automobiles to market is a priority for Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Senior officials are weekly meeting with personals from manufacturing and engineering to ensure a smooth launch in 2016 of its first inexpensive vehicle, Model 3.

Previously in April, Tesla recalled 2700 Model X vehicles to repair a third-row seat lock that could undo the seat and allow it to fold forward during accidents. The automaker has advised owners to keep riders away from that row unless fixes are done and is offering loaner automobiles to some.

The image of the vehicle maker suffered. Online platforms, auto reviewers, rivals and Facebook groups point out to the problems of Model X as a reason to doubt regarding the plan of the automaker to boost its output.

Tesla intends to manufacture 500,000 automobiles on a yearly basis by 2020; majority of those vehicles will be Tesla Model 3, a vehicle aimed to battle with affordable brands such as Chevrolet. The EV maker’s vehicle sales volume – an indicator watched closely by analysts and investors – cut down short of its first 6 months objective by 1200 units, or approximately one tenth.

Shortages of parts were partly to blame, but so were purchasing changes that came late in manufacturing planning. The company took the rare measure bringing the production of middle seats in-house for not a long period before the launch of the vehicle.

The president of sales and service of Tesla, John McNeil, said the company is quickly reacting to matters, most of those have been resolved  by an application fix provided to users through over-the-air updates.

Some Tesla car owners are yet waiting for fixes. Morgan Hill’s financial adviser, Brad Ledwith received his Model X on March 31, 2016 and loved it, immediately driving it on the highway and testing out its new features.

After few days, when the car’s falcon wing doors gave out, he initially thought that his children were to blame. After learning that the difficulty was concerned with production glitches, Mr. Brad called his local showroom, but the service outlet of the automaker was laden with too many repair orders. Two weeks would be taken to fix the vehicle, he was informed. 

IBM Revenue Declines In The First Quarter

The first quarter of the Big Blue couldn't generate impressive results for the company

International Business Machines Corporation has posted its 16^th consecutive revenue decline. The world’s largest technology services company posted the first quarter revenue of $18.68 billion that, in comparison with last year’s same quarter, has fallen down by 4.6%. Consequently, the company’s profits fell down by 13.5%. However, the tech giant did manage to post the results slightly better than the analysts’ expectations of $18.29 billion. Also, the company earned EPS of $2.35 –slightly outperforming the analyst expectations of $2.09.

The current revenue is the worst to be reported by the company in almost fourteen years. The company’s transitioning from the traditional business of hardware computing to cloud and mobile computing couldn’t offset the bad revenue the tech giant garnered.

Under the leadership of Virginia Rometty, the company has been struggling for a turnaround for over four years now. The CEO has taken the business into the space of “cognitive solutions” which includes, cloud-based services, data analytics, and security software. Also called “strategic imperatives,” in the first quarter, the division’s profit went up by 14% however it still couldn’t balance the declines the company faces in the traditional business segment. In segregated view, the revenue from hardware and services segments fell down by 21.8% and 4.3% respectively.

Back in February, in a meeting with Wall Street analysts, the CEO had said that the company is transitioning to cloud platform and cognitive solutions company. Last year, Big Blue spent slightly above $9 billion on acquisitions and bought close to 20 companies. However, the transformation has been tougher than the anticipation of the company. The key problem is that the company’s traditional businesses are narrowing down at an alarmingly fast pace while the newer business of cloud computing has been growing with a snail’s pace.

Moreover, Big Blue’s revenue from cognitive computing group also came to $4 billion by declining 1.7% year over year. The figure has also taken into account the “traditional transaction processing services” which were used by the airline reservation systems and banks which also declined by around 5%.

The North Castle, New York firm’s revenue generated from cloud computing services was quite better. Over a year, the revenue of the particular segment went up by 34% –including the sales of SoftLayer and Bluemix cloud services. The revenue also accumulated the hardware sold to the customers who intend to build in-house cloud computing services.

Ahead of Monday’s earnings, an analyst from Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Toni Sacconaghi said: “If the strategic imperatives are really working, then the company’s growth rate should be improving. The evidence so far has suggested that has not happened.”

Google Defeats Author Rights Organization

The US Supreme Court has ruled against Authors Guild and Google scores a major victory

On April 18, 2016, The Supreme Court of the United States announced it refused to hear about Authors Guild v Google, a pivotal legal case that fought the rights of book authors against the intent of the technology company to establish a huge digital library.

To do so, the American court quietly took the side of the organization, agreeing with earlier judgments that’s huge book scanning venture is lawful. A decade ago, an advocacy organization for rights of authors the Authors Guild, sued the US search engine developer for its book-scanning venture, then known as the Google Books Library Project.

The digital company had scanned 20 million books and launched them across the internet without being permitted by their writers, with the objective to make books more searchable.

At that time, the company also ran advertisements on the scanned pages (since then they have stopped); the guild claimed that the organization was infringing on copyright of writers and as well as depriving them of possible income.

Though the search organization has suspended its advertisements, the legal case continued, dramatically changing from a battle regarding financial compensation to one regarding the treatment of creative work in era of massive digitization.  

A decade later in 2015, a court of appeals gave a ruling again against the writers, stating the book scanning venture was safeguarded under “fair use”—by digitizing, Google Books had changed the books, and therefore wasn’t breach of copyright.

Present US law shields works based on pre-existing works, if they add anything or turn an original into a new one. But an amicus brief in Feb 2016 by big-name authors such as Malcolm Gladwell, J.M. Coetzee and Margaret Atwood claimed that “the internet was not anticipated” when fair usage was described in 1976.

In today’s era, derivative works, no matter how much transformative they are, might spread to millions instantly, all while heavily trading on the creative ideas of anyone without compensation.

The copyright legislation of the US has not been significantly updated since late 1970s, the writers indicated, and the “fair use” doctrine must be transformed in a lightening-speed distribution and digitization. By not listening to the legal case, the court implicitly upholds the venture of Google to provide free access to details that is unusually protected and locked up.

But it also cuts down its probability to redefine the importance of intellectual property in the digital era. BBC has reported that the search company could have lost billions of dollars in terms of damages claims from writers if it had been defeated in the case.

The Authors Guild said it was “disappointed” that the court won’t listen to its appeal. 

Yahoo Amidst Biggest Proxy Fight

Yahoo is likely to spend hefty amount of money to prevent the wholesale management change

The New York based investment advisor, Starboard Value, has geared up to remove Yahoo’s entire board from power. This will mark to be one of the biggest and the most expensive proxy fights to happen in years.

Although the stockholders of the internet giant are dissatisfied with the board, the proxy fights in opposition to a behemoth like Yahoo are highly rare, on top of it, achieving a full board’s replacement is rarer. Moreover, winning a proxy fight isn’t piece of cake –it might cost millions on companies as they have to spend on solicitation firms, lawyers, and other costs which might include mailing to shareholders.

According to the general notion, the companies spend a few million on a “single proxy fight” but the Sunnyvale, Calif. firm is highly likely to spend few more millions in order to prevent the wholesale management change. According to FactSet data earlier analysis, the costs pertaining to the proxy fight is directly proportional to the company’s market capitalization at the time of the campaign. Therefore, the higher the market cap of the company, the more price it has to bear.

Therefore, if the relationship between the two components – market capitalization and cost of proxy fight – as per the historical data has authenticity, then the $36 billion organization is likely to spend around $6.2 million as the proxy solicitor fees and other costs. This is not a huge sum of money for the company who generate around $5 billion revenue however spending ample amount of money as solicitor fees is not favorable option for the companies either.

According to the data compiled by CNBC.com and an analysis from ValueWalk, the protestors of the case are likely to spend considerably less in a proxy fight in comparison with the company who has been attacked. According to the FactSet database, if for the last decade the companies, on average, have paid $1.5 million, then the dissident groups have paid slightly over $700,000.

This could be the outcome of the incentives being in front of the investor who want to make the maximum profit out of the deal while, on the other hand, the management only want to have firm control of the company.

According to FactSet data, for Yahoo, things aren’t like this and there is not some relationship between the outcome of the proxy fight and the money spent on it.

Overall, there have been very few cases, which resulted in complete win against the Yahoo’s size entities. Activists generally use such ways to get a part of a settlement or concession or a split.  

Unilever's First Quarter Results

The multinational company's result has been impacted by the turbulent macroeconomic conditions

For the first quarter, Unilever PLC disclosed an increase in the sales of the primary produces as it sold its products at slightly prices but the topline results were snowed under the tough currency volatility.

The London based fast moving consumer goods company who has streamline of brands like Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and Dove soap has recently presented its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31. The company disclosed a decline in revenue of $14.3 billion (U.S. equivalent of 12.5 billion euros). In comparison with last year’s same period results, the company’s revenue fell down by 2.3% from an earlier $14.46 billion (U.S. equivalent of 12.8 billion euros).

After exclusion of the impact of foreign-exchange, the underlying sales escalated by 4.7% being in line with the analyst estimates.

In the emerging markets, during the first quarter, the underlying sales elevated by 8.3% up from the 5.4% growth which the company had reported in the prior earlier.

The $138 billion organization has been actively working to lessen the hard impact of the unstable macroeconomic conditions by elevating the product prices and launching the products’ premium versions. The Anglo-Dutch consumer goods company also took up a “zero based budgeting” which is a type of budgeting where the expenses are justified for each new period.

Unilever Chief Executive Paul Polman said on Thursday, “With markets remaining volatile, we continue to focus on driving agility and resilience in our business.”

The results were out after the rival Nestle SA, for the three months period, unveiled a rise of around 3.9% in the organic sales and established its full year growth in line with 2015.

At its personal-care arm, the company put forward healthy results showing 5.8% rise in the underlying sales. This business has been essential for the company as it let the company transition from exclusively being a food-focused company to the one that progressively sells face cream and body wash.

Moreover, the multinational organization garnered 3.8% and 7% underlying growth in its refreshment business –including tea and ice cream –and home-care division.

The company’s foods business, however, was comparatively slow. It only grew by 1.9% as the consumer goods manufacturer confirmed that the spreads business sales had been declining in spite of conducting new campaign in the U.K. which sheds the light on the company’s Flora margarine brand’s health credentials.

The company also announced an increase of 6% in the quarterly dividend to $0.36 (U.S. equivalent of 0.32 euros) per share.

Lastly, at the market which closed on Wednesday, Unilever stock stood at a price of $46.24. The 52 week range of the share is $39 to $47.