Utilis Industries to acquire Kellogg for $29 billion

edited 2015-03-29 00:16:54 in Chocolate
DENVER, BATTLE CREEK - Looks like Toucan Sam was for sale after all.

Battle Creek, Mich.-based Kellogg Company announced today that it had accepted a friendly offer of approximately $29 billion from Denver, Colo.-based Utilis Industries, the private holding company owned by billionaire Anonus Utilis. The all-cash deal, coming a day after the news of H.J. Heinz and Kraft Foods' blockbuster merger, values the company at $82 a share, a 30% premium over yesterday's closing price.

Upon the closing of the transaction, Kellogg will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Utilis Industries, the vehicle through which Mr. Utilis also controls ABC Warner, the media conglomerate created last year through the combination of ABC Inc with Time Warner in the largest all-cash buyout to date. ABC Warner already deals with Kellogg; the company sells a cereal based on Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo, the most prominent property of the ABC-owned animation studio. But conversely, the fate of Post's Pebbles cereals, whose packaging features H-B's Flintstones characters, is now up in the air.

It is speculated that Utilis may want to combine Kellogg, the maker of such prominent brands as Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Keebler, Kashi, Cheez-It and Pringles, with another major player in the food sector. But Utilis is coy about who exactly that player might be. The current Kellogg executive team will stay on board at least in the near-term; Kellogg CEO John Bryant has signed a year-long contract, effective at the close of the buyout, and will receive a $20 million severance package if he is dismissed before the contract ends. Utilis will also be less involved in the operations of Kellogg than he is with ABC Warner, where he serves as CEO and Chairman.

"Truth be told, I have long wanted to buy into the food business," said Utilis. "It's not glamorous, but it is stable. People want and need to eat." Despite this statement, Utilis and Bryant must deal with woes at Kellogg; sales of the company's flagship cereals are down as consumers shift towards healthier fare, and the company can't keep pace with competitors such as General Mills, which benefits from a more diverse portfolio of products than what Kellogg offers and has been swifter in keeping up with changing tastes, having acquired the Annie's organic food company in September. Kellogg acquired the natural cereal maker Kashi in 2000, but a series of PR flaps have lowered the brand's cachet in recent years. It is easy to argue that it is these woes in the first place that made Kellogg a takeover target. But Utilis doesn't intend to let Kellogg fester.

Comments

  • Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.
    heinz didn't originally have 57 varieties, he just liked the number, but later they tried to make 57
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    But what about my huge buyout of the Kellogg Company
  • congrats you can now devour all of the cornflakes your heart desires and make an official toucan sam porno
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    naney said:

    congrats you can now devour all of the cornflakes your heart desires and make an official toucan sam porno

    Don't forget the Pringle trucks
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    You do not own Toucan Sam. No one owns Toucan Sam.

    He might do a porno for the right price, however
  • Anonus said:

    naney said:

    congrats you can now devour all of the cornflakes your heart desires and make an official toucan sam porno

    Don't forget the Pringle trucks
    how do you make truck porn
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    Porno? Noooo

    Anyway:



    Mel Blanc!
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    when'd he stop speaking in Pig Latin though
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    naney said:

    Anonus said:

    naney said:

    congrats you can now devour all of the cornflakes your heart desires and make an official toucan sam porno

    Don't forget the Pringle trucks
    how do you make truck porn
    no not truck porn

    I mean the Pringle trucks that would almost certainly be showing up in Denver in greater numbers now
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    Something I dislike is if I'm eating Pringles out of the container thingy and when it gets low enough I can't reach 'em because my hand won't fit in there

    Please fix this
  • i just dislike pringles
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    turn the pringle can upside down then

    or I could have Julius Pringles come to your house with the remaining Pringles and go PAH-PAH-PAH-PAH-PAH-PAH-PRRRRINGLES FOR YOU
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    if I turn the can upside down they'll fall out.
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    Into your hand

    Are there too many Pringles left for this to be feasible?
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    if the remaining Pringles are in my hand, I can't use said hand for anything.

    this is a problem since I usually do something (like type) whilst eating
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    then eat the Pringles
  • I have cut a caper with the dancing mad god
    Recommendation: a divider in the middle of pringles cans. A lid on both ends. Double-ended pringles cans so that you never have to reach more than halfway down. 

    Like if you took two mini pringles cans and taped 'em together, basically. 
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    Welp

    Your royalty checks are coming
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    Excellent idea.
  • edited 2015-03-27 03:21:03
    I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    I do find it funny that nobody's like "Kellogg makes Pringles? When did this happen"

    ownership changes really do happen without much notice do they (Procter & Gamble, the product line's original manufacturer, sold it to Kellogg in 2012. It was their last human food product; Iams pet food and its related products would be sold to Mars two years later)
  • edited 2015-03-27 03:24:14

    i had no idea that they were ever manufactured by anyone apart from Kellogg
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    When I was younger I remember the Procter & Gamble reference on Jif labels becoming one for The J.M. Smucker Company and being so puzzled

    It makes sense on paper (Smucker being best known for its fruit spreads and in fact having tried to buy Jif since 1976 - finally succeeding when a 2001 deal closed the following year) but still
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    "Jif" was my first word

    not even making this up, I really liked peanut butter
  • my first word was train because autism
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    I don't know what my first word was
  • Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.
    Anonus said:

    I don't know what my first word was


  • mine was "cookie"

    in my defense have you had cookies?
  • I have, they're great
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    depends on the kind, but they are often quite good.
  • Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.
    i don't remember my first word, but c is for cookie and that's good enough for me
  • in that song Cookie Monster says you can't eat the moon, but he also has a song about how he would eat the moon if moon were cookie
  • never stop dreaming
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022

    in that song Cookie Monster says you can't eat the moon, but he also has a song about how he would eat the moon if moon were cookie

    That second one is nightmare fuel though
  • Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.
    why do you think moon is crescent, centie
  • Because part of it blew up when Kirby destroyed Nightmare
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    exactimundo
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