Unilever waves goodbye to grim 2004.(Financial News)(Brief Article)

Sales worries for Unilever continue. Unilever's latest quarterly earnings results saw pretax profits plunge over 35 per cent to 2.9bn [euro] and overall 2004 sales growth slip to just 0.4 per cent. Unilever blames the grim news on a lack of product focus and turbulent trading conditions. Stiff competition, too: even in fast developing consumer goods markets like Asia, Unilever only managed an overall 1.4 per cent increase in 2004 sales. Price cuts also hit its overall sales performance.

But the maker of Sunsilk and Pond's has also been hit by recent balance sheet excep