It’s chocs away for Cadbury bid as Kraft gets serious

Kraft's £9.8 billion hostile bid for Cadbury will begin in earnest today, when the American food giant posts the details of the offer to shareholders of the Dairy Milk maker.

The release of the offer documents comes ahead of a deadline on Monday to formalise the bid. That then kick-starts a 60-day timetable.

Kraft's expected offer — a mixture of shares and cash — will value Cadbury at around 717p a share. Cadbury shares today opened at 800p, reflecting the widely held believe that another bidder will emerge and that Kraft is willing to increase its price.

Kraft advisers will argue that its bid is the only one officially on the table, and therefore the best one. Hershey is assumed to be lurking in the background and raising finances for its own tilt.

Cadbury management has been unusually open in indicating that it would prefer a tie-up with Hershey, a company it feels is culturally a better fit than Kraft. Chairman Roger Carr has rejected the terms of the Kraft deal as "derisory".

Kraft is expected to offer 0.2589 shares in itself for every Cadbury share and 300p in cash.

Cadbury will then have two weeks to respond to this offer in a defence document.

It will argue that it has strong prospects as a standalone business and will seek to entice shareholders with promises of better returns in the future.