40 days to save Unilever City HQ

Business minister’s frantic talks to stop FTSE giant leaving London

MINISTERS are scrambling to convince consumer giant unilever to keep its uK headquarters after the Dutch launched a charm offensive to woo the company.

Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, has reportedly met bosses ‘a lot of times’ amid growing concern they will choose Rotterdam over London.

If the FTSE 100 firm quits London it would abandon its HQ on the River Thames. It occupies a giant 1930s-listed building with tall, white columns. It is thought around 1,000 staff work there.

unilever, which makes Dove, Persil, Marmite and Lynx, is also being intensely lobbied by officials from the Netherlands, who have cut taxes in a bid to make the country more attractive.

unilever’s decision, it is thought, will be made around March 31.

Britain’s 13th biggest company has an unusual dual- structure that keeps its uK and Netherlands arms legally separate with their own stock market listings.

This means it has two ‘headquarters’, one in London and one in Rotterdam.

unilever pledged to simplify its management structure after seeing off a hostile £115bn takeover bid from uS rival Kraft Heinz. And even though Paul Polman, unilever’s chief executive, has said the decision is not related to the uK’s impending exit from the European union, the timing has still attracted extra scrutiny. A move to ditch the firm’s London base is likely to be seen as a snub but unilever insists no decision has been made yet and Clark and his top official, Alex Chisholm, have had talks with the firm in a bid to persuade it to stay. They are still said to be optimistic.

unilever employs about 7,500 people in the uK and 3,000 in the Netherlands. The uK Government has said it is monitoring the situation but declined to comment further on the meetings.

The company has refused to comment on whether a change would lead to job losses. But it could lose its place in Britain’s FTSE 100 if it makes Rotterdam its main base.