UNILEVER IN INDIA 31 1913 as an English trading company with a view to regularising and systematizing the business in India.1 But in later years other foreign companies like Gossages and Sons and Crossfield and Sons also got registered in India and the competition in the soap market began. In the early 1920's an increasing number of Indian soap manufacturers also entered the field. In the late 1920's indigenous soaps cornered half of the market share. Lever Brothers made a number of moves which resulted in their acquiring both the big foreign competitors, Gossages and Crossfield, as well as the major Indian soap manufacturing units, North West Soap Factory and Premier Soap Factory. Even then their business was hampered because of trade restrictions, especially when an import tariff ad valorem of 25 per cent was imposed in 1932. In that year they decided to start the manufacture of soap locally in India, through Lever Brothers (India) which was made a wholly-owned subsidiary. Lever Brothers (India) Ltd. was registered as a manufacturing company in Bombay on October 17, 1933, under the Indian Companies Act, 1913. The memorandum of the company listing its objectives provides scope for a vast amount of vertical integration of the company, ranging from raw meterial sources to the right to extend full or partial control on any indigenous or other company, as well as the right to develop a wide range of activities in promoting its business and capturing the maximum share of the market; in short, the declared objective of the company from its very inception was to capture an unassailable monopoly position in the Indian market. After registering. Lever Brothers (India) Ltd. started its operation with the opening of the first factory at Haji Bunder (in Sewree, Bombay), near the site of the already existing Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company, a sister concern, which was also incorporated as a Unilever subsidiary in 1931. This was the beginning of a permanent base for the industrial activities for Unilever. The production of soap generated by Lever Brothers in India was not enough to match the demand. In 1935 a trading company named United Traders Pvt. Ltd.,a wholly owned subsidiary of Lever Brothers (India) Ltd., was registered under the Companies Act. This subsidiary's business was to handle the imported soap from Unilever. In 1939, Lever Brothers (India) bought up all the shares of Premier Soap Factory and the North West Soap Factory from its parents, and in 1944 the management of all Unilever subsidiaries—Lever Brothers (India), United Traders and Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing— was integrated "for better efficiency". On November 23, 1956, Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company and two associated companies, William Gossages and Sons (India) Pvt. Ltd. and Joseph Crossfield (India) Pvt. Ltd., which were wholly owned subsidiaries of Unilever Ltd., were amalgamated with Lever Brothers (India). United Traders had ceased operating and was taken over by Lever