Jump to full article: Bloomberg News, 2000-06-26
Author: Will Edwards
Intro: Philip Morris Cos. agreed to buy Nabisco Holdings Corp. for $18.9 billion, adding Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers to its Kraft Foods business. The company will then sell shares in Kraft to the public.
Philip Morris will pay $55 a share in cash for Nabisco, its biggest purchase since the takeover of Kraft in 1987, and assume $4 billion in debt. Philip Morris plans to sell less than 20 percent of Kraft in the initial public offering. . .
The purchase will make Philip Morris less reliant on tobacco. Its stock fell 43 percent in the past year as the company faced smoking-related legal challenges, including the first class-action suit ever to go to trial. . .
The company expects to sell shares in Kraft early next year and use proceeds to pay part of Nabisco Holdings's debt.
``What (the initial public offering) does is underscore the true value of Kraft,'' said Philip Morris Chairman and Chief Executive Geoffrey Bible. ``This will create the most profitable and efficient food business in the world, and people will be able to focus on it independent'' of the tobacco business.
Jump to full article »
Quotes from this article:
What [the proposed Kraft IPO] does is underscore the true value of Kraft. . .This will create the most profitable and efficient food business in the world, and people will be able to focus on it independent [of the tobacco business].
Philip Morris Chairman and Chief Executive Geoffrey Bible. Edwards, W. <I>Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds to Buy Nabisco Units (Update5)</I>
|