One of Unilever’s most successful brands is Cif, an astringent cream used to polish up grubby kitchen surfaces. Recently Unilever has been seeking to apply similar techniques to its portfolio of brands.

The sprawling Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant, which owns everything from Pot Noodle and Marmite to Peperami sausages and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, has been underperforming its peers for years. Now it is juggling its range of products and developing fresh marketing ideas aimed at providing it with an opportunity to promote and cross-sell its products to customers whenever they enter one of 17,000 corner shops — a powerful instrument to breathe new life into flagging sales of Bovril, Vaseline and Cornetto ice-creams.

With 206,000 employees globally and sales of €42 billion (£28.5 billion) last year, Unilever remains one of Britain’s biggest companies, but it is being muscled aside by more aggressive competitors, such as Nestlé, of Switzerland, and Reckitt Benckiser, maker of Cif’s arch-rival Cillit Bang.

Unilever is also in the midst of a tough internal restructuring programme, with Patrick Cescau, its chief executive, forcing through €1 billion (£679 million) of cost cuts, including the loss of 28,000 jobs. Last year, Unilever sold most of its frozen foods business to Permira, but fears remain that the company itself could become a target for aggressive investors.

With private equity firms flush with cash and prepared to attempt ever-bigger and bolder acquisitions, Unilever has repeatedly been named as an attractive target that could come under renewed pressure to be taken private.

Any approach for Unilever would be a huge mouthful for private equity.

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