The directors at Kraft must be shaking in their boots. After all, some British MPs have invited them to cross the water and come and answer some questions. God, I bet their shitting it. They don't have to come of course and if I was on the money they're on I doubt I would bother.But the whole Cadburys debacle has to be seen as a resurgence of the worst excesses of capitalism in action.
Kraft launch a £11.9bn takeover bid for Cadburys. They don't have the money to do it but they can borrow it, to the tune of £7bn. Yes, borrow it. £7bn worth of borrowing.
Not only that but the publicly bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland, 84% owned by us remember, helped them in the bid to the tune of £630m.
During the takeover Kraft pledge to keep the Cadburys Keynsham factory open. Once the takeover is complete however it transpires that the factory is to close, with the loss of 400 jobs, because the work is going to Poland. Something that Cadburys themselves had already instigated. Kraft insist that the work building the factory in Poland is already too far advanced to cancel which, of course, they were completely unaware of during the negotiations.
So that's 400 jobs to go with the remainder looking like they are on decidedly shaky ground given that Kraft have borrowed the money for the takeover and will need to repay it at some point. Hmm, how are they going to repay that volume of cash I wonder? Couldn't be through factory closures and job losses by any chance could it? No, of course not. They pledged to keep Keynsham open.... oh, ye.
With me so far? Hostile takeover of UK company by US company, part funded by us through our stake in RBS, resulting in job losses in the UK. Sweet.
It's a future of grim uncertainty for the 6000 remaining employees of Cadburys in the long term then but how did the Chief Executive do out of the deal? Surely he's done himself out of a job?
Well, he has but I doubt he will be wondering where the next meal is coming from any time soon.
The Chief Executive, Todd Stitzer, is sitting on £12m worth of cash and shares, as a result of the Kraft takeover, if he leaves the company. I'll break that down for you: ~£1m 'compensation' for one years salary, a bonus worth around £2m (nice - a bonus for shafting your employees) and the ability to cash in shares worth £8.6m. Lost count yet? Because he is also sitting on a pension worth around £1.5m a year. I bet he feels just terrible about all this.
Oh, and did I mention that assorted City flunkies - investment bankers, lawyers, PR advisers and accountants - also racked up fees to the tune of £2m a day during the 5 month long takeover wrangling? Didn't think so.
In summary then: big businesses back to their day jobs of swallowing each other up whole despite capitalism's hollow competitive-market promises, funded by those massive shits - the banks - which have in turn been funded by us, jobs lost and factories closed as a result but don't worry about the CE(O) - he'll survive, while MPs and Unions alike flap about ineffectively promising to do something but really just selling out the workers for the 'best deal'.
It's like the Financial Crisis™ never happened.
The Best Of The Wolfhounds is available here.
The line-up for this recording:
Callahan - Vocals, Guitar
Golding - Guitar, Vocals, Piano
Oliver - Bass
Stebbing - Drums, Computers, Percussion
Matt - Backing Vocals
The Wolfhounds - Rent Act (EP) (Midnight Music DONG43 1989) 320kbps
- Rent Act
- Everybody
- Died The Small Death
- Recycle
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