CBY posts
FeedPosted Feb 16th 2010 6:00PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) issued its fourth-quarter report earlier today. Sales increased over 3%, but organic net revenues were flat. Restructuring initiatives helped to drive a very significant jump in operating income, as well as a nice expansion of the operating margin. Net income from continuing businesses came in at 48 cents per share. Not only did this represent robust growth, but it beat estimates by three pennies, according to our earnings preview.
Management promoted an awesome fact in the release: free cash flow was up over 30% for the full fiscal year. Changes in working capital aided the increase. I like it.
Continue reading Kraft Reports Winning Q4
Posted Jan 19th 2010 9:00AM by Melly Alazraki (RSS feed)
Filed under: Deals, Hershey Co (HSY), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
Kraft Foods (
KFT)
agreed a deal to buy Cadbury (
CBY) for around 11.9 billion pounds ($19.6 billion), creating the world's top confectioner. Kraft had to increase its offer, injecting more cash into the bid to win over the 186-year-old Cadbury, which has finally surrendered its independence and accepted the sweetened offer.
Kraft's offer is 840 pence per Cadbury share, with shareholders also getting a 10 pence special dividend, bringing the offer to a total of 850 pence per share. The new bid has won unanimous recommendation from the Cadbury board. Cadbury shares hit a record high of 838 pence in early trade in London and jumped over 5% to $54.63 in premarket trading.
Continue reading Sweet Surrender: Cadbury Accepts New Kraft Offer
Posted Jan 19th 2010 8:03AM by Melly Alazraki (RSS feed)
Filed under: Before the Bell, International Markets, Market Matters, International Business Machines (IBM), Citigroup Inc. (C), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT), Oil

U.S. stock futures were slightly lower Tuesday morning as investors returned from a long weekend ready for earnings season to get in full swing with Citigroup (C) and IBM (IBM) reporting Tuesday. Also, several mergers greeted traders, including, finally a $19.5 billion offer for Cadbury by Kraft Foods.
On Friday, U.S. stocks fell after JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) reported better-than-expected results, that included
, however, deep fourth-quarter loan losses. Also, a consumer sentiment survey was weaker-than-expected as consumers were increasingly concerned about income and employment. Continue reading Before the Bell: Futures Slide Ahead of Citi Earnings
Posted Jan 12th 2010 1:40PM by Tom Taulli (RSS feed)
Filed under: Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)

In the massive cross-border hostile takeover battle, Cadbury (
CBY) again said "no" to Kraft's (
KFT) $16.91 billion offer. Although, in buyout-speak, the response was in a
press release that called the deal "fundamentally unattractive" and even "derisory" (yes, the attorneys have spent time at the thesaurus).
Why the rebuff? Cadbury reported a healthy 2009 and expects the good times to continue into 2010. In other words, a buyout is not necessarily evil -- that is, so long if the price is right.
Continue reading Cadbury Still Doesn't Crave a Buyout
Posted Dec 26th 2009 8:40AM by Paul Foster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Hershey Co (HSY), Options, Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
IBM (IBM) closed at $130.57. IBM is expected to report Q4 EPS on Jan. 19. January option implied volatility is at 16, February is at 21, April is at 22; below its 26-week average of 24 according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.
Cadbury PLC (CBY) closed at $50.81. The European Commission's has a Jan. 6 deadline for reviewing Kraft's (KFT) plan to buy CBY. Cadbury, the world's second largest confectioner, rejected Kraft's buyout bid in November. Hershey (HSY) and Italy's Ferrero have said they are considering rival offers for Cadbury. January call option implied volatility is at 26, puts at 29, March volatility is at 27; verses its 26-week average of 27, according to Track Data.
Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.
Posted Nov 18th 2009 7:45AM by Melly Alazraki (RSS feed)
Filed under: Before the Bell, International Markets, Deals, Market Matters, Hershey Co (HSY), Economic Data, Kraft Foods'A' (KFT), Commodities, Oil, Housing

U.S. stock futures edged higher Wednesday morning, a little above the 13-month highs they reached Tuesday, as investors await key data figures, including consumer prices and housing starts. As traders take a breather from the recent runup in stocks, the same trends that pushed markets higher on Tuesday remain: the dollar dropped and commodities soared, driving mining stocks higher in overseas markets.
[
Update 8:30 a.m.: October housing starts were down 30% from last year, the weakest since April. CPI rose 0.3% in October on higher energy, car prices. At first glance, these figures may affect the mood negatively.
8:35 a.m.: Stock market futures are declining, indicating a lower start.]
Continue reading Before the bell: Futures fall after housing, inflation data
Posted Nov 9th 2009 9:50AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Deals, Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)

Ahead of the pre-determined deadline, Kraft (
KFT) decided to launch its
formal offer for U.K.-based chocolate maker Cadbury (
CBY). KFT announced that the cash-and-stock bid is worth $16.46 billion (9.8 billion pounds) or 717 pence per U.K.-listed CBY share.
At that rate, KFT said the bid is 37% higher than CBY's July 3 close. KFT added that no other potential buyer has declared interest in CBY. KFT is offering CBY shareholders $5 in cash and 0.26 share in KFT. For each American CBY share, KFT is offering $20 cash and 1.04 shares.
Continue reading Kraft launches hostile takeover of Cadbury
Posted Oct 30th 2009 2:40PM by David Schepp (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Forecasts, Products and Services, Consumer Experience, Wal-Mart (WMT), Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), Target Corp. (TGT), Hershey Co (HSY), Costco Wholesale (COST), Hormel Foods (HRL), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT), DJIA, Stocks to Buy, Recession

Halloween, though not the blockbuster holiday that Christmas is, still results in some additional spending on the part of consumers as they stock up on candy and costumes, and maybe take in a scary movie or two. With those treats in mind here are some stocks that may give investors sweet dreams -- and hopefully not nightmares.
As is well known, candy is all the rage at Halloween, and among the largest candy stocks are
Hershey Co. (NYSE:
HSY) and
Cadbury PLC (NYSE:
CBY). Last week, Hershey reported third-quarter earnings rose 30% despite weaker volumes affected by higher prices for its sweets. Last year's numbers also included special charges. Still the company said it expects full-year earnings to be
ahead of Wall Street forecasts. In 2010, the Pennsylvania company said it expects earnings excluding items to rise 6% to 8%. The stock has a forward-looking price-to-earnings ratio of 16 and a current dividend yield of 3.1%.
Continue reading Halloween stocks offer investors a chance at financial treats
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 3:20PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Hershey Co (HSY), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
Hershey (NYSE:
HSY) had a more than acceptable
third quarter in terms of bottom-line growth, but it looks like the market couldn't care less. As I write this, shares of the candy company are trading down 4.4% in the afternoon session, on extremely sweet volume (and by sweet, I mean bad).
On an adjusted basis, Hershey increased per-share profit by 14% to 73 cents. According to Earnings.com, analysts were only expecting 67 cents per share. Hey, what's going on? The Dow and the S&P 500 are in the green, and the NASDAQ is only down slightly. Shouldn't investors be happy with results like these?
Continue reading Hershey's Q3 results give investors an early Halloween fright -- why?
Posted Sep 15th 2009 4:40PM by Beth Gaston Moon (RSS feed)
Filed under: Deals, Rumors, Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)

Earlier today, the Street was
abuzz with rumors that
Kraft Foods (NYSE:
KFT) was investigating the sale of brands such as Maxwell House and Oscar Mayer in order to raise capital to up its
Cadbury (NYSE:
CBY) bid to something a little bit sweeter (and one the confectionery giant might not reject).
Kraft responded to the rumors saying they were just that - unfounded conjecture - and noted that it would not in fact need to ditch hot dogs and coffee for creme eggs and Trident gum. A spokeswoman for the company told
Reuters "The financing for this proposal does not require any divestitures." So where did these rumors get started, anyway? Is Kraft protesting too much?
Continue reading Will Kraft dump assets to sweeten the Cadbury bid?
Posted Sep 11th 2009 10:30AM by Eric Buscemi (RSS feed)
Filed under: Analyst Reports, Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades, Nokia Corp. (NOK), Best Buy (BBY), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), Clorox Co (CLX), Colgate-Palmolive (CL), News Corp'B' (NWS), Analyst Initiations
Analyst upgrades:
- FBR Capital upgraded Ann Taylor (NYSE: ANN) to Outperform from Market Perform to reflect a recovery in the missy sector and the company's product improvement. The firm raised its target on shares to $19 from $13.
- Roth Capital upgraded Marvell Tech (NASDAQ: MRVL) to Buy from Hold based on product cycle strength in wireless and Ethernet, HDD share gains, and a return of PC growth. Target is $22.
- Goldman upgraded Colgate (NYSE: CL) to Buy from Neutral citing valuation and expectations for a pick-up in unit growth. The firm raised its price target to $85 from $83. Note that Goldman downgraded Clorox to Neutral from Buy.
- Cadbury (NYSE: CBY) was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at HSBC.
- Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN) was upgraded to Buy from Underperform at BofA/Merrill.
- Qwest (NYSE: Q) was upgraded to Market Weight from Underweight at Thomas Weisel.
Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: ANN, BBY, CBS, CL, MRVL, NOK, Q ...
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