“Sure you can, junior,” B of A and JP Morgan said to Hershey. “Just remember we’re not made of money.”
The Business Standard reports Hershey is wants to borrow the money to buy Cadbury, the British hatchery of those delightful Easter basket treats, for 10.3 billion pounds — that’s 195 bazillion in U.S. dollars.
Kraft is also going after Cadbury, and Augustus Gloop (who has changed his name to distance himself from that embarrassing incident in which he fell into Wonka’s chocolate river as a boy) is being coy about which suitor he’ll let romance him:
Attributing to Cadbury Chief Executive Todd Stitzer, the report said, Stitzer has indicated support for a possible tie-up with Hershey, rather than Kraft.“I would prefer Cadbury to be in an environment where its values and principles could continue,” the report said citing Stitzer.
If the company’s “values and principles” are giving you tummy aches with delicious food, either company is entirely capable.
JP Morgan, BofA gear up to fund Hershey’s Cadbury bid [Business Standard]
(Thanks, NORMLgirl!)
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I wish I had 7 billion dollars to buy Cadbury.
Well, you are in the same boat as Hershey then. They don’t have it either. They are looking to borrow it.
Both Hershey and Cadbury make some good candies, the best candies belong to these guys:
http://www.joshearlycandies.com/
Granted, if you don’t live in Eastern PA, they’ll gouge you on the shipping, but they still make the best chocolates I’ve ever had.
I used to stop in there a lot when I lived in Allentown. I thought their candy was pretty good. On the west coast, I stick to See’s for my chocolate fix.
Or if you’re on the west coast, you could try https://www.franschocolates.com/
My gift recipient in Texas loved the stuff I sent. Unfortunately, that was last year. This year, no gifts due to unemployment.
Josh’s shipping charges are extreme:
If your order total is: Shipping charges will be:
$0-$25.00 $8.00
$25.01-$50.00 $12.00
$50.01-$75.00 $14.00
$75.01-$100.00 $18.50
$100.01-$150.00 $24.00
$150.01-$200.00 $30.00
$200.00 and over 15% of total order
And it’s shipped Priority Mail.
I just hope Hershey doesn’t screw up the Cadbury recipe. I despise Hershey chocolate and LOVE Cadbury, even though I don’t think the EU believes Cadbury is actually real chocolate.
Then you may find it interesting that Hershey is the company that produces Cadbury products in the US.
As long as they don’t change the Canadian Cadbury formula I will be happy. Caramilks are the best chocolate bar ever.
Which is why I buy my Cadbury in the British Import section at Publix. And now I need a Fruit and Nut Bar. Thanks, Consumerist!
Heh, Hershey’s chocolate often has a weird plastic feel/taste/texture to it. I’m not so much a fan.
I actually noticed this once they went to that plastic wrapper instead of the paper foil.
Of course we don’t have an edit button….
but any of you can notice because the Hershey’s of like 5 years ago would crack when you “broke” it… the Hershey’s of today bends and sorta stretches until it finally breaks.
Actually, I just had a Hershey bar this weekend, and I haven’t in a while. It broke, the same as it always did when I was a kid.
I think temperature and age of the chocolate have a lot to do with this.
I’m still mad at Hershey’s for trying to get the legal definition of what constitutes “chocolate” changed. Screw them!
Hershey’s was only one of the companies that tried this, but I agree – that’s nasty. Even as a child I would look at chocolate labels because candy that didn’t meet the definition of chocolate was called chocolate candy, or chocolate flavored, and tasted bad compared to real chocolate.
I turned into an Easter basket snob. The chocolate bunnies from cheapo companies tasted wrong, and Cadbury bars tasted better than Hershy bars – I knew it at 6.
I wasn’t aware that Hershey still went on to change a lot of their chocolate to be chocolate flavored. I think only Kisses and the regular Hershey chocolate bars survived that fate.
If it makes you feel better, the EU currently allows vegetable fats to be used in “chocolate”, which the US still prohibits.
Hershey,
I will offer you $3.50 and a drawing of a spider (rarer than gold these days) if you will back out of negotiations with Cadbury.
Kthxbai!
Sincerely,
PecanPi
But spiders are so overrated these days, and it’s proven that you can copy them with a click of a button the same way the treasury prints money putting their high strung value into question. Clearly a different new currency is required :p
“that’s 195 bazillion in U.S. dollars”
Really….
Who the hell wrote this pile? It’s lazy and unfunny.
FYI, next time you’re feeling too lazy to look up exchange rates, just google “10.3 billion pounds in usd” and it will spit out “10.3 billion British pounds = 17.06298 billion U.S. dollars”, so now you have no excuses.
Um, it says who wrote it right underneath the “headline.” Who’s lazy now?
ZING!!
Honestly, I would rather have just $2B to buy Volvo. Its cheaper, and I would like to make them not suck so bad.
Why do Volvos suck? I love mine.
From a business perspective ,this makes some sense (if only to corral a competitor) for Hershey.In theory ,there are a lot of duplicative functions at Cadbury that could be subsumed into existing Hershey infrastructure. The product lines only compete in a few areas (Cadbury is seen as an upmarket brand above the pedestrian line of sweets at Hershey) It could work in theory…
But it will not be done in a computer simulation. Fiefdoms will be shattered ,egos will be bruised and all hell will break loose once two companies of this size shack up. There will be payoffs to upper management that will gobble money like an 8 year old let loose in a candy store. There will be nooks and crannies in the company that will remain sacred cows for restructure because they are some managers pet. There will be layoffs as two try to live as cheaply as one. Finally ,the product will be homogenized ,adulterated , and cheapened because the truth is that post-merger ,the accountants will have much more power than you can imagine.
Somebody needs to say it: No matter how many cutesy ads they run ,Hersheys chocolate tastes like chewing on a votive candle that has fallen into the cocoa box. They will do it to Cadbury too.
BTW , I almost did a Dr. Pepper noser when I read about “values and principles” being a consideration in this deal. Translation- Bid higher
I’m wondering how you know what the flavor of a votive candle that fell into a box of cocoa tastes like.
Personal experience?
Does this mean we may see Crunchie bars stateside? Please?
I’m holding out for Cadbury Flake.
Just come up to Canada! We have all the Cadbury goodness up here.
I did just that last year. One of the local grocers finally started carrying some more traditional Cadbury items like Dairy Milk, Fruit & Nut (one of my other favorites), and even Toffee Crisp. Not much else yet, but the owner seemed genuinely intrigued by descriptions of their other confections.
Kraft needs to keep their hands off Cadbury.
They bought Terrys Chocolate (Chocolate Oranges) shut down the factory and moved production to Poland!
The Factory now stands empty.
As for Hershey they couldn’t make a decent chocolate bar if they wanted to.
“The Business Standard reports Hershey is wants to borrow the money to buy Cadbury the British hatchery of those delightful Easter basket treats, for 10.3 billion pounds — that’s 195 bazillion in U.S. dollars.”
Didn’t you guys check for grammar before posting
maybe the internet catz got too him?
Hahaha! Consumerist is has been eated by lolcats.
…says the gent who ended a question with a period.
Here… you dropped this: —-> ?
Maybe like us they can’t edit their posts.
*shakes fist* Now I really want chocolate!!
Man, that means that us Americans are going to get worse Cadbury chocolate. Crap.
When Hershey purchased Scharffen Berger in Berkeley they stated that nothing would change. Then the IT crew from PA came and installed their systems. Then suggestions were made about ingredients to lower production costs. Now – little more than 3 years later – the factory is being closed, production moved away. The chocolate, while certainly a step above Hershey bars (votive candles that fell in cocoa as stated above) isn’t as good as when Scharffen Berger was independent. They also purchased Josef Schmidt about the same time, though I have no info about what happened there.
I think they ended up closing Josef Schmidt too. I used to live a couple blocks away from their store in San Francisco