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Kraft Foods Announces New Heads

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Kraft Foods IncKraft Foods (NYSE:KFT) on Monday announced top executives who will head the two parts of the company after the split.

Irene B. Rosenfeld, the current Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the global Kraft unit, will hold the position of the CEO of the global snack company. W. Anthony Vernon, the current Executive Vice President will head the North American grocery business.

The announcements came as little surprise to analysts and shareholders, who were hoping that these two be named as the heads of the yet unnamed companies.


Rosenfeld led snack unit will handle products such as Oreo cookies, Cadbury chocolates and Trident gum. Vernon led grocery business will lead the Maxwell House coffee and the Kraft Cheese units. Rosenfeld had led the North American division of PepsiCo. Inc.’s Frito Lay unit.

Other major announcement made on Monday was the appointment of John T. Cahill as the non-executive chairman of the unnamed North American grocery unit. Cahill is an industrial partner of Ripplewood Holding LLC, a private equity firm. He will be an industrial partner on Kraft’s board. He will begin as an executive chairman, in order to assist the company’s split up and also help in setting up of the independent grocery unit as a completely independent trading company.

Cahill has in the past served as the CEO and the Chairman of Pepsi Bottling Group Inc., and also oversaw the spinoff of PepsiCo Inc. in the year 1999. It is hoped that the experience gained from this will help in setting up of Kraft’s independent grocery unit. Cahill has also previously been a colleague of both Vernon and Rosenfeld.

Rosenfeld has held the position of Kraft’s CEO since 2006 and has also been credited with integrating into Kraft Nabisco, leading the company from its split of Altria Group Inc. and also acquiring Cadbury candy and Lu Biscuits.

Kraft announced its plans to split into two units in August this year, which will separate the company’s slow growth grocery businesses and it rapidly growing snacks businesses. The two companies are projected to complete formation by 2012. The shares of Kraft were high by 3 cents on the New York Stock Exchange, shortly after announcement of the appointment.

Kraft is betting highly on developing markets such as India and Brazil and believes that this is where growth will come from. Growth so far has been exceptional from these markets.

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edliston
Post Written By: Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.


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Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing.

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