Kraft makes £10bn bid for Cadbury
Kraft Foods has presented its new offer for Cadbury, valuing the UK confectioner at £10.1bn ($16.8bn).
The US food company was widely tipped to make its offer today after Cadbury told the group to follow the “put up or shut up” rules set by the UK Takeover Panel.
Kraft’s offer of 300p in cash and 0.2589 new Kraft shares for each Cadbury share is unchanged. The US food giant says the offer values Cadbury shares at 713p each, based on the closing share price of $26.50 per Kraft share on 1 December. Analysts have reported that expectations are that a higher bid will be made.
It comes a month after Kraft last issued a £9.8bn hostile bid for Cadbury just a few hours before the imposed deadline. The board of the Dairy Milk maker, which described it as a “derisory” offer that undervalued the company, rejected the bid immediately.
Shareholders have until 5 January 2010 to respond to the offer.
Kraft said its offer was “in the best interest of both companies’ shareholders”.
Kraft initially launched a £10.2bn bid for Cadbury in September, which was also immediately rejected. Cadbury chairman Roger Carr has said the Kraft offer is an “unappealing prospect”.
More recently, it has been speculated that other confectionery giants are also looking to compete for the business. Hershey is believed to be raising finance to launch a £10.3bn offer with Ferrero for Cadbury and Nestle is also reportedly musing an offer.
