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Cadbury takeover

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Seadragon | 10:22 Tue 19th Jan 2010 | News
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I am so gutted that Kraft are taking over Cadbury. My parents live 15 mins away from the Birmingham site, I take the kids every year to its factory. It is a much loved British Institution. The chocolate is the best in the World and Quakers founded it and had a philantropic philosophy in regard to its workers. Kraft closed down Terry's site when they took it over. This is a really sad day.
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Would you like to see laws preventing more companies from being bought by forigners like they have in - gasp- France?
It actually excellent Kraft have badly over paid for an over priced asset which wil over the next 10 years be squeezed hard to control them and other chocolate makers who sell products that encourage obesity.

Also given there huge share of the chewing gum market you can put Cadbury down as one of the great urban despoilers.

Not since the sale of Jaguar to Ford has an American company been this stupid but given their fortune is based on "Crackers" what do you expect.
I guess you must have taken a punt recently on buying a few shares, D?
No not on that one but I get irritated with the little England mindset.

Cadbury was over 50% forign owned anyway so what is the big deal if they buy the rest.

If people really wanted it to remain British they should have bought the shares.
a blow to the UK tax take, which means everyone else will have to make it up - this from Anthony Hiilton in the Evening Standard:

Every day someone in the City pops up to say how much tax revenue the country will lose because City “talent” will move overseas to escape the Government's 50 per cent tax rate and the bonus levy. Boris Johnson has taken to saying it twice a day. Banks, brokers, hedge funds are, it seems, poised to join the rush to … well not America any more after Obama's tax raid, but somewhere. The mantra is that wherever it turns out to be, our tax revenues will plunge when they go.

But none of these self-appointed guardians of the nation's finances points out that selling Cadbury to Kraft, the US food group, will also have a hugely negative effect on UK tax revenues — far more than the loss of a few hedge funds. The record shows that UK firms which pass into foreign ownership — businesses such as Rowntree, Asda, Pilkington, BAA — very soon pay much lower corporation tax to the UK Government. This is because their new foreign parent organises affairs so that what was a UK profit is subsequently generated in a country or a tax haven where the rates are lower.

This is only the first tranche of tax loss. The parent will also move manufacturing abroad, denying the Exchequer another stream of tax, and then there is the lost income tax when the business's “top talent” has to relocate.

It is an odd world where the possible loss of a few hedge funds arouses more concern than the loss of Cadbury.

http://www.thisislond...s-vital-as-cadbury.do
Actually I think Kraft is borrowing huge amounts of cash to buy off the shareholders - a loan that will then be born by the Cadburys.

It's those that choose to remain at the company that suffer

Actually I get irritated with short sighted "investors" who treat stocks and shares as gambling chips and don't give a to$$ about the devastation they leave in their wake
and what happened to Terrys products when Kraft got hold of them ?

for instance The Chocolate Orange had its recipe changed. To save costs inferior products were used and it no longer tastes as good as it used to be.

Cadburys chocolate will never be the same now, Kraft will do the same again
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The government can only have a say as Mandleson and Brown have but can't prevent the takeover from happening. David, Cadbury's is a hugely successful business. The issue of obesity is down to lifestyle choice. Neither I or my children are obese or close to it. We visit the factory every year. They give you about 8 bars of free chocolate by the time you leave the place yet none except one of my kids are big chocolate eaters. They maybe have chocolate about 3 times a week? I am really sentimental about it. Its down to money, money, money... always has been, always will be.
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Exactly Baz. I occasionally want to buy a Terry's Orange but just the thought that after 2 slices it will sit in the fridge for weeks before it goes in the bin puts me of. It doesn't taste like what it used to. Once Cadbury's goes abroad it won't taste the same either even if it is only an occasional treat.
Share are just "Chips" that is the point.

Employees and customers are not the owners of companies and if they don't like the new set up they can vote with their feet.

As to tax take the bulk of taxes paid by companies are Income tax and NI in respect of their employees and VAT in respect of sales. Corporation tax is small beer in the scheme of things and governments know it.

If governments want to increase their tax take then all they need to do is make the UK a good place to do business.

Given most Cadbury employees are overseas the UK exchequer is not really going to be impacted other than the head office and PLC elements will go.

As to the quality of their chocolate there are so many substitutes in Cadbury's Dairy Milk that it needed the rules to be changed to actually call it chocolate.

Read the label and see how much vegtable oil is used instead of milk! That is the stuff that kills!

But it kills slowly so don't worry have another bar?
How is Cadbury a British institution? Gimme a break.
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No David the first ingredient in a Dairy Milk is milk. Actually the amount of milk they use may be one reason besides Cadbury being successful that Kraft are interested as cheese makers. Further the Board of Directors are legally bound to shareholders to deal in their best interests. I think it went for 8.50 a share?

Furthermore Chocolate has been around for a long time some say it even has benefits, you can't solely blame chocolate consumption for obesity problems. I was reading the other day that a heart surgeon is calling on the ban of butter has the biggest contributor to heart deaths.
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Yes it is a British Institution Krom. Founded by British Quakers over a century ago. I am really sentimental about this takeover. The Bourneville factory will never be the same. I do hope they improve it but I'm not expecting that. And for some silly reason I thought I might get some sympathy on here as none of my co-workers are bothered, not being in Birmingham. Should have posted in B & S? I almost feel as sad as the day I heard Diana died - and I never saw the woman, had nothing to do with her, all media influence there.

I sent out few texts early this morning as well, one response was - 'nothing is forever my dear, such is life we just little people here experiencing lifes bombshells.' I tell you those bombshells are guided by huge sums of money.

'Goodbye cruel world, goodbye' - Bette Midler's quote from Hocus Pocus.
As stated Kraft took over Terrys in York and then closed it......Nestle took over Rowntrees in York and I've no idea where KitKats are now made.....
Actually, the one chocolate I really dislike is Cadbury. That has nothing to do with the question!
My ex lived in a lane opposite the house that the Quakers who founded Cadbury's owned. They donated the house to the University of Birmingham I believe, and now they've done something else with the property. Wast Hills House on Wast Hills Lane, Kings Norton. Yes, it is a sad day for Cadbury's.
You do know that Cadburys were planning to close Keynsham, but Kraft have pledged to keep it open
Curiously enough according to the EU we don't have chocolate at all! we have Vegilate! as it has nowhere near enough cocoa to be considered chocolate!
Sentiment does not pay the bills or make the world go around.

I would also dispute the 'best chocolate in the world' I just popped down the road here in Bruxelles for some real stuff and well. Cadburies eat your heart out.
/// I get irritated with the little England mindset.///

Those pesky 'Little Englanders' again.

If they had been listened to years ago, this country wouldn't be in the mess it is now.

Our politicians have sat back and let other countries raid our land and taken over almost all our industries, until we hardly own anything anymore.

Can one imagine the French allowing a foreign country to take over Renault or Germany allowing anyone to take over Mercedes?

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