Kraft Foods looking to sell two Cadbury offshoots
The ongoing sale of the Romanian and the Polish operations of Cadbury were demanded by the European Union as a condition upon clearance for the acquisition of Cadbury. The sale of the two operations will raise around EUR500 million and are not exactly integral parts of the main Cadbury business. However, the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft Foods has been one of the more controversial in the UK of late and to this day it is still attracting the attention of MPs and regulators.
Indeed the UK government is set to introduce proposals for a "Cadbury law" which will give prominent UK companies and those involved in the infrastructure of the UK economy more protection from overseas takeovers. However, there are growing concerns that a tightening of regulations in the UK will see a similar response from other overseas markets in which UK companies operate and have in the past acquired operations.
While there is no doubt that Kraft Foods has "hit the ground running" with regards to Cadbury, introducing a number of cost-saving exercises such as changes to the company's pension scheme, what did the government really expect when the US giant invested nearly £12 billion to take control of the company.
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