In remarks following the unveiling of a sweeping corporate restrupcturing,Fitzgerald said 25,000 jobs will be cut over five years and as many as 100manufacturing and distribution sites sold off, as Unilever takes a heftyswing at costs.

"We're also making major moves to simplify our administrative organisationand put it more on a regional and, in some cases, global basis. That willtake significant costs out," said the 33-year company veteran.

He said the job cuts, representing 10 per cent of the global workforce,would be made through attrition where possible. The cuts were set mostly forEurope and the Americas, Unilever said.

Elevated in 1996 to the chairmanship of Unilever Plc and thevice-chairmanship of the Dutch Unilever NV half of the Anglo-Dutch group,Fitzgerald pleased investors with his plan.

Unilever's stock price in early trading was up 7.7 per cent in Amsterdam and6.0 per cent in London, moving off rock-bottom lows hit in recent months asUnilever's top-line growth has slowed and markets have lost interest inconsumer goods stocks.

As part of the restructuring, Unilever will make "radical changes" to itssupply chain to focus on 150 key sites. "There will be probably be about 100sites surplus requirements, which we will dispose of," Fitzgerald said.

Unilever will focus promotion and development on 400 key brands out of itsstable of roughly 1,600 brands. Among the key brands will be well-knownUnilever names such as Lipton tea, Dove soap and Calvin Klein fragrances, hesaid.

"The consequence of that is that the tail brands will fall away in duecourse and that we will be able to simplify and make major improvements tothe supply chain and to the way in which we do business generally,"Fitzgerald said.

In addition to revealing restructuring proposals, Unilever reported 1999pre-tax profits were down and sales were largely flat on a currentcurrencies basis, as expected.

Earnings before exceptional items were 27.76 pence per share on the samebasis, up seven per cent over the prior year and towards the high end ofindustry analysts' forecasts.

"We had a stronger fourth quarter than perhaps the market was expecting ...All in all the year ended better that it had been in the earlier part,"Fitzgerald said.

Margins improved and sales growth was strong in the fourth quarter, withrecovery in Southeast Asia, but continued high marketing costs in SouthAmerica where Unilever has been fighting a costly laundry detergent pricewar with arch-rival Procter & Gamble of the United States.

South American detergent market share losses have been stemmed and wereholding steady in the 60 to 70 per cent range, Fitzgerald said. "We're veryhappy with those," he added.

Unilever has also been challenged in US ice cream. "In the packaged icecream market, we lost a little bit of share last year due to very severeprice discounting. We chose not to participate quite to the length of otherpeople, but we are quite confident we'll win that back in the course of 2000with some strong marketing-led innovations," he said.

In Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, he said, "it's still a bitdepressed there. We have consolidated our business. We see it as havingsignificant potential for the future, but for the moment it's tough goingbut we're sticking with it."

Unilever reported 1999 pre-tax profits of 2.92 billion pounds on a constantcurrencies basis, down five per cent from 1998 and in line with analysts'estimates.

(The Wall Street Journal)