Cadbury chocolate takeover deal

[Lars77]

Run time: 02:29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9eP5-qkAVc   Posted on YouTube: January 20, 2010 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: January 20, 2010 By DU Member: Lars77 Views on DU: 487

 
British chocolate-maker Cadbury has been swallowed up by the US food giant Kraft for just under $20 billion.

Kraft has been trying to take control of Cadbury for some time now, and this improved offer seems to have sealed the deal.

Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull reports from Cadbury HQ in Bourneville, in the UK's Midlands.

[Lars77]

1. One of the UK's best employers..

Provides many benefits to locals, funds schools etc.

Guess that's all about to change.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. I hope the creme-eggs stay on the shelves. n/t

[enlightenment]

3. Apparently, Kraft did this with money that they don't actually

have - it's facing a $9.5 bn debt to cover the cash portion of the takeover.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/de9cbfec-05d3-11df-88ee-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=da5b2be8-9c6b-11de-ab58-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

It's a shame to see a fine home-grown company get swallowed up by Kraft. Buy your chocolate now, because Kraft will be looking for ways to cut production costs and increase profits . . . quality will go down the tubes in the process. Look what they did with Toblerone. :(

On edit: a friend of mine works in a job centre in Essex; her boss told them to expect redundancies soon because of this takeover.

[JDPriestly]

5. Leveraged buy-outs are bad for the economy, especially

when done by over-leveraged companies like Kraft.

Right-wingers like to fuss about the federal deficits, but the corporate deficits are much more destructive.

Cadbury chocolates are a delight.

Kraft's chocolates are, well, I don't want to commit trade libel, but I do not eat Kraft's foods if I can afford it. That's my opinion of them.

[enlightenment]

6. Because I know virtually nothing about business economics,

this is probably a stupid question (my apologies in advance):

Since Kraft is a US based (corporation wise) company, whose economy is more severely impacted if they can't meet their debt obligations, etc? The US or the UK? I know that the UK economy will suffer - maybe just locally because of restructuring and such - but that's because of the buyout itself, rather than the nature of the buyout . . .

Am I making any sense? Probably not . . . :(

[Cosmocat]

4. Hershey was trying to make a bid ...

Cadbury did not want Kraft, it might even have been termed a hostile takeover ...

Hershey was trying to get in on it, but apparently Kraft had more to offer.