Afternoon:
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The Cadbury camp were all smiles at this afternoon's super-low offer from Kraft, with one senior insider describing it as the “dead on arrival bid”.
With Kraft offering absolutely nothing more than its first tilt in September, conspiracy theorists soon got to work with suggestions that Irene Rosenfeld had lost the will to carry on with the bid.
Rather than launch an offer with an eye-catching price, they said, she had decided to bid low in the knowledge that it would be rejected out of hand, but at least she could say she had tried.
The reason? According to these theorists, Rosenfeld had to launch some kind of offer having spent tens of millions of dollars — some estimate as much as $70 million — getting the financing in place for a bid.
“This is just a face-saving exercise. If she'd spent all that money raising a war chest and then not used it, shareholders would have been asking her some serious questions,” said one.
However, others suggested Rosenfeld was playing a far longer game.
One investment banker highlighted the slightly unusual strategic decision to wait until early trading in New York this afternoon to launch the bid, rather than press the button at 7am on the London Stock Exchange.
One investment banker said the delay was a clear attempt to keep New York shareholders on side.
Likewise, a big opening offer price, he added, would have gone down badly at home. Instead, she would want to be seen to be moving slowly and cautiously before upping her offer.
“This is the start of a long process,” the banker said.
