Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods company, said Monday that it had agreed to buy the beauty care company Alberto Culver for $3.7 billion. Unilever, which makes Dove soap, Pond's skin cream and Vaseline, said Alberto Culver's array of brands -- TRESemme, Nexxus, VO5, St. Ives and Simple, to name a few -- would enhance its hair and skin care businesses. The company will pay $37.50 for each share of Alberto Culver, which is based near Chicago. That is 19 percent more than the stock's closing price of $31.48 on Friday and a third more than its average share price for the last year. Ten years ago, the personal care business 'represented 20 percent of our turnover,' Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, said in a statement. 'Strong organic growth has driven it to now reach over 30 percent, with strong positions in many of the emerging markets.' He added that so-called bolt-on acquisitions like the deal for Alberto Culver, rather than huge, transformational deals, were one way he hoped to double the size of his company. Polman spent 27 years at Procter & Gamble. After a subsequent, relatively short stint at Nestle, he became chief at Unilever early last year, the first person from outside the company to hold the post. Polman's background in household products may explain what one analyst called a 'rebalancing of the company' away from food, where Unilever now derives half its revenue. Martin Deboo, an analyst at Investec Securities in London, said that while Unilever likes to say it 'owns the supermarket,' its presence in several aisles has, until now, been weak. The Alberto Culver deal, however, will make it the top company in hair conditioning and put it in the top three for shampoo and styling products, Unilever said. Alberto Culver had annual sales of $1.6 billion for the year ended in June. That means Unilever paid 2.3 times sales for the company, higher than the 1.7 that it agreed to pay for the Sara Lee unit, a company spokesman, Paul Matthews, said. Deboo said the price of bolt-on acquisitions can overstate the actual cost to the company because the synergies can be high when operations are combined and positions eliminated. Alberto Culver has about 2,700 employees and operates in nine countries. Unilever said it expects the deal to add to earnings within a year, excluding revamping charges. 