Unilever splashes out and prepares to double water purification enterprise

UNILEVER is doubling the size of its water purification business as it seeks to make safe drinking water available to 500million people by 2020.The FTSE 100 company, whose brands include Dove, Sunsilk, Hellman's and Wall's, is paying an undisclosed sum for a majority stake in China's Quinyan Group. It will sit alongside Unilever's Pureit home purfier brand which was launched in 2005.

Chief executive Paul Polman said it was Unilever's biggest acquisition in China for more than a decade.

He added: "Unilever has been building a global water purificationbusinesswith Pureit, a very effective, affordable water purification device, already present in several countries in South Asia, South-east Asia, Latin America and Africa.

"This deal will more than double the size of our water purification business and will bring together complementary technology from Pureit and Qinyuan and leverage Qinyuan's local marketing insight, manufacturing and distribution strength - all under the Unilever umbrella."

China's water purification market has been growing at the rate of 20 per cent a year for the past three years and in its last full year Quinyan, which employs 2,500 staff, generated sales of about £112million.

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• Consumer Products
• Filtration