Malaysia Grocers

LONDON, Nov 23 — Cadbury Plc shares hit a record high on speculation of a battle for the British confectioner between bidder Kraft Foods Inc and rivals who are considering making takeover offers, analysts said today.

Cadbury shares rose over 2 per cent to a high of 817 pence before last trading up 1.9 per cent at 816p at 0930 GMT, or nearly 13 per cent above Kraft’s bid valued at £9.9 billion (RM55.53 billion). Continue Reading…

by Hemananthani Sivanandam

TESCO Stores (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd recently teamed up with local designer Rizalman Ibrahim to create a stylish reusable bag made entirely out of recycled plastic bottles.

The new bag, aimed at helping help people use less plastic carrier bags, retails at RM4.99, is available in all 31 Tesco stores nationwide.

Tesco will also be giving RM0.50 from every sale of the bag to GREENaid, a programme to support various conservation and educational activities on natural heritage managed by Malaysian Nature Society.

Tesco is only producing 50,000 of these unique designer bags which comes with a blue butterfly print on one side and the letter ‘r’ (denoting Rizalman) with a recycling symbol on top in the form of a dot on the other side. It also has Rizalman’s signature at the bottom. Continue Reading…

LONDON: British candy company Cadbury PLC will reject an expected 10.3 billion pound ($17 billion) takeover bid from U.S. confectionary giant Hershey Co., a newspaper reported Sunday.

Britain’s Sunday Times cited an unnamed industry source as saying Cadbury is reluctant to do a deal unless Hershey raises its valuation of the company, which makes the Dairy Milk chocolate bar.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Hershey Co. is preparing a bid, but that it won’t be ready for around two weeks.

It said the offer is expected to include at least $10 billion in cash from Hershey, plus $2 billion in new Hershey shares and another $3 billion to $5 billion in cash from investors in exchange for equity in Hershey. Continue Reading…

NEW YORK: Hershey Co. may make a US$17 billion bid for UK candy company Cadbury PLC, topping the recent $16.5 billion hostile offer by Kraft Foods Inc., the Wall Street Journal reports Friday.

The bid wouldn’t be ready for two weeks and the terms are in flux, the newspaper says people close to the matter have said.

But the people said the charitable trust that controls the company and has complicated Hershey’s merger efforts in the past is now prodding CEO David West to beat Kraft’s offer, the Journal reports. Continue Reading…

HAVE a Coke and a smile – that was one of the most memorable taglines for Coca-Cola.

Although Fraser & Neave Holdings Bhd (F&N) has lost the rights to sell Coca-Cola drinks locally, the company has every reason to remain optimistic.

F&N CEO Tan Ang Meng

“We have been preparing for life post-Coca-Cola and we are pretty optimistic,” chief executive officer Tan Ang Meng tells StarBizWeek. Continue Reading…

MILAN: Any bid for UK confectioner Cadbury by Italian chocolate maker Ferrero would have to be friendly, an Italian source close to the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

“You cannot do an operation of this kind unless it’s friendly,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Ferrero declined to comment.

Cadbury is currently facing a US$16.5bil hostile bid from Kraft Food Inc, and on Wednesday, US-based Hershey Co and family-owned Ferrero said separately they were reviewing a possible rival bid. Continue Reading…

GOOD packaging and strong brand presence go a long way towards enhancing sales of products, as they stand out in the market and attract customers’ attention.

The right branding and good packaging can triple a company’s sales, SME Corp Malaysia Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Hafsah Hashim said.

“We monitor small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have obtained SME packaging grants and we found that the minimum increase in sales was 30 per cent, while the best was 230 per cent,” she told Business Times in an interview.

Training local SMEs on innovative packaging and branding is one of SME Corp’s immediate plans after it started its operations on September 1. Continue Reading…