Word: krafts
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...these stomach-churning times, there's comfort to be had in chocolate. Just ask Kraft. The world's second-largest foodmaker revealed on Monday, Sept. 7, that it had launched a $16.7 billion bid for British confectioner Cadbury, a bold effort to create "a global powerhouse in snacks" worth $50 billion a year in revenues. Cadbury rejected the offer, but Kraft, maker of Oreo cookies and Kool-Aid, showed its sweet tooth. The firm is "committed to working toward a transaction," it said in a statement, "and to maintaining a constructive dialogue...
...Cadbury can't be that surprised by Kraft's interest. Ever since U.S. chocolate giant Mars picked up chewing-gum maker Wrigley for $23 billion in 2008 - overtaking Cadbury to become the world's biggest confectioner in the bargain - analysts have held up the British firm as a compelling target for a firm like Kraft. Cadbury boasts around a quarter of the world's fast-growing gum market, a sector Kraft has missed out on. Its muscle in the U.K., Latin America and key emerging markets like India would also complement Kraft's strengths in the U.S. and Europe...
...timing of Kraft's offer - initially tabled in late August but made public only Monday - makes good sense. Part way through a years-long plan to boost its margins, Cadbury has an earnings potential that looks healthy. Having spun off its troublesome drinks business in 2008, it saw its profits and margins both rise in the first half of this year. Nor is there much concern about Kraft's being able to pull off such a merger. Deals involving a large firm's acquisition of a significantly smaller one - revenues at Kraft are more than four times those of Cadbury...
...Could those production snags trickle down to the price of a cuppa joe? The signs are that they are starting to. U.S. food company Kraft upped the price of its Maxwell House Colombian ground coffees by roughly a fifth in April. Rival Smucker's made a similar move earlier in the month for its brand, Folgers. Tea drinkers are being milked for more too. Responding to increased market prices, Anglo-Dutch conglomerate Unilever - owner of the PG tips and Scottish Blend brands - plans to increase the cost of its tea bags by about 10% in the coming weeks. Patrons...
Having his way with words is Kraft's project too. The source of the plans for Peter's aerocycle is a do-it-yourself magazine called Impractical Craftsman--an inspired title for the age of armchair American ingenuity and, not incidentally, a nifty description of a fiction writer. On paper, a novel about hope, nostalgia, love, disillusionment, pataphysics and the science of lift might seem like a hopelessly overdetermined bucket of bolts, an aerodynamic impossibility. But Kraft's affectionately satirical, buoyant language makes Flying soar...