Cloetta and Leaf have sealed a €753m merger as the companies eye market leadership in the Nordic region.
Cloetta said the deal would bring together 2,800 employees and would be financed through a cash payment of
€166m and the rest in company shares. It will mean the new Cloetta starts with a net debt of €343.4m.
The company said it was aiming to become the market leader in Sweden and the Nordic region while also
maintaining a presence in Italy and the Netherlands. Cloetta said that the ...

McCormick has announced a deal to acquire Polish flavour company Kamis for 830 million Polish zloty (approximately 208 million euros), as the company looks to push in the Eastern European market.

SAB Miller is likely to go higher to secure the purchase of Foster’s, but with the Australian beer market in decline, analysts have questioned the potential value of a tie-up. Foster’s rejected an offer of AUS $9.5bn ($4.90 a share) this week, prompted SAB Miller to promise further “engagement” with the board of the Australian brewer.

Portuguese confectionery and cake company Dan Cake has entered into a joint venture with Indian Phadnis Group. The new production facility will have five production lines focused on family cakes, butter cookies, Swiss rolls, cup cakes and lady fingers. The total production capacity of the plant in India is expected to be 10 tonnes per day in a 24-hour shift.

“To enter the Indian market at the earliest, we are considering initial production near Khopoli till our Chakan plant is fully functi...

Confectionery and snack company Zetar has acquired UK-based chocolate confectionery manufacturer Derwent Lynton for £800.000. Derwent Lynton specialises in the manufacture of solid milk chocolate and chocolate flavour balls and eggs, hollow milk chocolate shapes, sugar-coated milk chocolate products including eggs and beans, and coated chocolate drops. Its operations will form part of Zetar’s Confectionery division.

In the year ended 30 June 2010, Derwent Lynton had sales of £4.2 million...

Diamond Foods Inc. is buying Procter & Gamble Co.'s Pringles chips business in a $1.5 billion deal, the biggest in a string of acquisitions that have given the maker of Pop Secret popcorn and Kettle chips a growing share of the snack aisle.

The deal also completes P&G's exit from all its major food businesses. The maker of Tide and Pampers has sold off Folgers coffee, Jif peanut butter, Crisco shortening and Sunny Delight drinks in recent years.

The Pringles deal is structured to create a n...

Cargill is to acquire German chocolate manufacturer Schwartauer Werke Kakao Verarbeitung Berlin (KVB), as part of the company’s plans to expand further into Europe.

Nestlé has sold its Russian confectionery division, Altai Confectionery, in a reported bid to focus on its core brands, according to media reports. Private company Corminus Enterprises, which is headed by former Nestlé executive Igor Kubanov, is reported to have acquired the business from Nestlé for an undisclosed sum. The transaction is expected to be closed in the second quarter of 2011. Stefan De Loecker, CEO of Nestlé Russia said that "The sale of this company will allow Nestlé in Ru...

Cargill is to acquire Indonesian starch and sweetener company PT Sorini Agro Asia Corporindo, deal designed to help it better serve its customers in the Asia Pacific region. The acquisition of 85.01 per cent of Sorini’s ordinary shares in two separate deals will bring it new manufacturing and supply capabilities in starch and starch derivatives, sorbitol, maltitol, dextrose monohydrate, maltose and maltodextrine. Present in Indonesia since 1974, Cargill’s existing plants make animal nutri...

Grupo Bimbo has completed its acquisition of Mexican confectionery firm Dulces Vero, a deal that will strengthen its position in the US hispanic confectionery market. Financial terms of the transaction, which was first announced in mid-June, have not been disclosed. Dulces Vero, which produces a range of confections including lollipops, gummies, caramels and marshmallows, had 2009 sales of approximately Mex$1.1bn.

US based confectionery firm Necco has announced that it has a hired an investment bank to help it identify a strategic partner or explore a possible sale of its business. The New England Confectionery Company (Necco), the oldest multi-line confectionery company in the US, makes well-known brands such as Necco Wafers and also produces private label products and performs contract manufacturing for other confectionery companies. The 163-year-old firm, based in Massachusetts, said that while it h...

PepsiCo has revealed its intention to buy 66 per cent of Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods, Russian dairy manufacturer, for $3.8bn with plans to acquire the remaining shares following completion of the initial deal. Acquiring Wimm-Bill-Dann, which has grown in 18 years from a one room business into a company employing 16,000 people, will give PepsiCo a leading position in Russia and a significant presence in the dairy segment. PepsiCo sees the Russian dairy market and dairy in general as one of the most p...

Private equity firms Blackstone Group LP and PAI Partners, which acquired United Biscuits in 2006, are considering selling the company for more than 2 billion pounds, Reuters...

The sale includes Kandia-Excelent brands such as Rom, Magura, Kandia, Laura, Sugus and Silvana, ...

It is reported that Kraft has shortlisted potential buyers to six, including two buyout firms and four strategic players. Final bids are due by the third week of June.Private-equity firms include Bridgepoint and Advent International, along with Nestle and Hershey.

Wedel is said to be valued...

The transaction, which is expected to close in the next two months and is subject to customary closing conditions, values Michael Foods at approximately $1.7 billion.

Michael Foods is a multinational...

The UK Parliament’s Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, in its report published today, expressed concern that the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft was ultimately decided by institutional investors motivated by short-term profits rather than those investors who had the company’s long-term interests at heart. The politicians found that the takeover was particularly marred by the controversy over Kraft’s statements regarding the future of Cadbury’s Somerdale factory which was earmarke...

Warren Buffett has moved into the alcohol business with the acquisition of the wholesale distributor Empire Distributors.

Mr Buffett bought Kahn Ventures, the Atlanta-based parent of Empire through McLane, a subsidiary of his holding company Berkshire Hathaway. The purchase price was not disclosed.

“We expect that the Empire acquisition will provide us with a solid platform for potentially acquiring other similar high-quality distributors,” Mr Buffett said.

Management and staff will...

Gordonsville, Virginia-based PBM manufactures and distributes over-the-counter store-brand infant formula and baby foods sold by retailers in the mass, club, grocery and drug channels in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China.

PBM's products include infant and toddler form...

In January, it was said that Coca-Cola was considering buying a controlling stake in Nidan from private equity group Lion Capital.If approved, this acquisition will make Coca-Cola the number one player in the Russian juice market,

Coca-Cola already has a significant share in the Russian juice market through Multon, which has a nearly 22 percent market share, according to research group Business Ana...

Belgian da...

PepsiCo today announced that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has granted early termination of the waiting period for its previously announced plan of merger with PepsiAmericas.

Several members of the company's leadership team will be leaving their posts shortly after the closing of the company's merger with PepsiCo. The officers who have signaled their intent to leave include Alexander H. Ware, executive vice president and chief financial officer; Anne D. Sample, executive vice president o...

Pure Circle and Imperial Sugar have  made a joint venture to offer sugar and stevia combinations to food and beverages industries. PureCircle manufactures a natural, high intensity Reb A sweetener derived from the leaves of the stevia plant. It has been positioning the sweetener as a possible complement to sugar for some time, to take advantage of both products’ natural status, meaning that unlike many other sweeteners that could be used to reduce sugar, manufacturers could continue to use ...

Fellow chocolate maker Hershey said on Friday it had no intention of bidding for Cadbury, so with Nestlé already ruled out, Kraft appears on course to complete its recommended bid by the deadline of Feb. 2.

“Further to its announcement of Nov. 18, 2009, Ferrero International SA confirms that it doe...

Kraft has reached a tentative deal for a friendly takeover of Cadbury, agreeing in principle to pay about $19 billion in cash and stock for the confectioner, people briefed on the matter said on Monday. If realized, the deal would create a global food giant that would unite Kraft with Cadbury . Together, the two companies would have more than $50 billion in revenue and a big presence in markets globally.Most recently Mars buying the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company in 2008 for $23 billion became the b...

It is expected that today (monday) Kraft may raise its initial value of hostile bid for Cadbury above 800p. Today is a holiday in US and stock markets are closed. Despite  supportive announcements of several British investors to Cadbury management, those US investors of Cadbury which hold at least 40% of the shares may be willing to exchange their shares with Kraft when the offer is around 820p or over.

On the other hand, the rumors that Hershey is preparing to make a bid, gets stronger. We ma...

In a final defense document, the British confectioner said Kraft's "derisory" offer valued Cadbury lower than any comparable deal in the sector and that its standalone value had risen since the Kraft bid emerged last September.

"Our performance in 2009 was outstanding. We generated good revenue growth despite th...

The combination of Kraft and Cadbury would create the world's largest sweets, chewing-gum and chocolate group, overtaking Mars-Wrigley.

The Commission t...

Wall Street Journal reported that investor Warren Buffett waded into the battle for Cadbury PLC, issuing a rebuke of Kraft Foods Inc.'s just-sweetened, nearly $17 billion takeover offer for the British confectionary company. As Kraft's largest shareholder—with a 9.4% stake—Mr. Buffett's holding company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said it wouldn't support the issuance of new shares to pay for a Cadbury deal. "To state the matter simply, a shareholder voting 'yes' today is authorizing a huge ...

Kraft Foods said yesterday (15 December) that it had received clearance from US competition authorities to proceed with its proposed acquisition of UK confectioner Cadbury.

In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, Kraft revealed: “The US competition condition to the offer is now satisfied.” According to a spokesperson for the company, Kraft now only requires regulatory clearance in the EU. Last week, the European Commission has exteded the deadfline for reviewing the proposals until...

The comments by Roger Carr, Cadbury's chairman, came in a formal defence document issued to its shareholders today designed to thwart a £9.8bn hostile bid from Kraft.

Alongside the verbal rebuttal, Cadbury also laid out a series of targets for the next four years which it hopes will be enough to persuade shareholders to knock back Kraft's existing offer. They are:

European regulators have pushed back the deadline for their review of Kraft’s $16.1bn bid for Cadbury after the American company offered concessions, they said on Wednesday.

The European Commission has extended the deadline by ten working days from December 14 to January 6, its daily list of mergers and takeovers under review showed. This is in order to review concessions put forward by Kraft to help ease anti-competition concerns, although European regulators did not give further det...

UK biscuit manufacturer United Biscuits is preparing to enter India, where the group plans to manufacture and market biscuits for Asia's third-largest economy. "Having identified India as a market with great potential, UB plans to manufacture and market biscuits directly in the country for the Indian market,” a spokesperson for the UB told. The spokesperson added that the group is still conducting “trials and market assessment” but UB does plan to set up new manufacturing facilities in ...

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Cadbury is the chess piece that could determine who leads the world's confectionery market, depending on whose hands the company ends up in.

If it lands in the portfolio of Kraft, that marketer would topple Mars from its perch as the globe's leading confectioner, a status Mars assumed after winning control of Wrigley last year. But now, Ferrero has confirmed an interest in acquiring Cadbury, and The Wall Street Journal reported that it is considering a linkup with Her...

Hershey's controlling Trust has belatedly accepted that, without doing a deal, the chocolate company faces slow decline. That removes one obstacle to Hershey challenging Kraft in the battle for Cadbury.

Hershey will struggle to acquire a company twice its size. Given limited geographical overlap, moreover, synergies would probably be less than Kraft’s targeted $625m a year. A mooted $17bn offer, including $10bn cash, would leave combined Hershey- Cadbury with debt of five times earnings be...

• Kraft
• Hershey and Ferero coalition
• Nestlé may bid as well

But when all the rumors and analysis read carefully, what I see as the most interesting option would be a Hershey bid backed by Nestlé. Nestlé definetely will not like to see a "Kraftbury" threat to its chocolate market, but it cannot make a direct bid to Cadb...

20 November 2009 Source: just-food.com

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Kraft Foods Inc may raise its offer for British chocolatier Cadbury Plc  or offer more cash in its bid if rival takeover offers emerge, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday.

Kraft took a $16.8 billion hostile offer for Cadbury to shareholders two weeks ago. Most of the remaining large players in the global confectionery industry -- U.S.-based Hershey Co, Italy's Ferrero and Switzerland's Nestle  -- are now weighing takeover bids themselves, according...

Nestle is reviewing its options with bankers and may decide against a bid, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Hershey and Ferrero SpA said in statements last week that they were also evaluating options. Ferrero, the ...