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Kraft

Kraft turns tail, MPs tell tales

by nick on April 9, 2010

MPs have published a report this week, from the Business and Enterprise Committee, wagging fingers at Kraft for closing Somerdale after it promised otherwise.

Did anyone old enough to spell ‘business’ actually think Kraft weren’t going to slash costs as quickly as they could? As the song goes, the first cut is the deepest.

Does Mandelson et al actually believe Irene Rosenfeld – Kraft’s iron lady – cares one iota about what they do, let alone think? What possible retribution can they threaten her with? Perhaps they’re angling for an excutive discount at the latest coffee shops in town?

Westminster were stupid enough to believe the American’s rhetoric, now they’re scoring own goals by commissioning a report whose Executive Summary could read, “Hey everyone, we were naive schoolboys. Look at what the nasty business lady did under our noses.”

Mr Cameron has started his election campaign referring to the voting masses with the phrase “the great ignored” (stolen from Nixon’s silent majority). Maybe he was actually referring to the Business and Enterprise Committee.

Did we really need to spend money on this report? What’s the expression, ‘fool me once…?’

Photo is Irene Rosenfeld taken from Kraft’s site.

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Chocolate’s poacher or gamekeeper?

by nick on January 22, 2010

Unless you’ve been on Mars this week, you’ll know all too well that Kraft have now purchased Cadbury.

Well, it now turns out that Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS, hired by Cadbury, are – thanks to the purchase – to be paid more than if they’d successfully defended the hostile takeover.

It’s easy to flow with the anti-bank sentiment at the moment, but throughout the process we were led to believe that Cadbury’s management were hell-bent on seeing off the greedy American and retaining a British jewel. Let’s remember, Kraft is only in buying mood because they think organic growth is unlikely and Cadbury has a bigger future ahead of itself. They sounded like a deer being hounded by a savage tiger. Now it’s apparent that they gave the gatekeepers strong odds to leave the door open!

Nice to see the basic theory of management is still alive and well: what you reward, gets done.

Warren Buffet, Kraft’s largest shareholder, felt their shares were undervalued so instructed 500p in cash make up the 840p offer. That’s around £7 billion in bank debt added to balance sheet.

I guess it’s only fair banks both sides of the pond maxed out, right?

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