Kraft to raise 7 bn pound via bonds to fund Cadbury buy

The US confectionery giant Kraft is preparing to tap the bond markets to raise as much as £7 billion to help finance its £11.9 billion takeover of the British chocolate maker Cadbury, say media reports.

"The American food giant Kraft is preparing to tap the bond markets to help finance its £11.9-billion takeover of Cadbury," the Sunday Times said.

Kraft is drawing up plans to launch a "£7-billion bond issue to re-finance a short-term bridging loan provided by a consortium of investment banks including Deutsche and Citi."

Saying that no formal decision has been made to press ahead, the newspaper said quoting sources that Kraft is likely to launch the mammoth bond issue within weeks.

The issue would take advantage of low interest rates and strong investor appetite for corporate bonds. The proceeds would replace the bridging loans that typically have a much higher interest rate.

Kraft had, in fact, highlighted the possibility of a bond issue in its formal offer documents released last week.

Meanwhile, Cadbury chairman Roger Carr claimed over the weekend that Kraft could have bought the confectionery giant for 50 pence a share less if it had pressed ahead with an 800 pence-a-share hostile offer before Christmas.

"If Kraft had moved faster, I believe it may have succeeded at an even lower price. Everything we were hearing from the hedge-fund community was that as long as it has an 8 in front of it, Kraft gets it," Carr said.