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Consumer goods giant Unilever today ruled itself out as a potential white knight for Cadbury, as the UK chocolate maker battles to fight off an unwanted £10 billion-plus takeover bid from Kraft of the US.
Support for a bid from Unilever had been growing in recent days as the clock counts down on Kraft. The US foods group has until 5pm next Monday to launch its bid or shut up shop and retreat back across the Atlantic.
The Unilever bid suggestion was first put about by Panmure Gordon analyst Graham Jones last month: “We feel there is a bigger opportunity for it to become a leading player in the large, and highly attractive, global confectionery market.”
But today Unilever finance director Jim Lawrence said that the company was “not interested in buying Cadbury.”
At the same time he unveiled faster third-quarter sales growth than the City had been expecting. Rather than the 3% forecast by analysts, Unilever came in with underlying growth of 3.4% and volume growth of 3.6%.
Chief executive Paul Polman, who took over in January, admitted that Unilever had to adapt to get through the recession saying: “Our market shares are responding to stronger innovations, greater consumer value, increased marketing support and better execution.”
But at the bottom line the group, which has 400 brands including Knorr stock, Hellmann's mayonnaise and Sunsilk shampoo, saw after tax profits drop 33% to 2.75 billion (£2.46 billion), but after stripping out restructuring costs profits were down by only 7%.
