D-Day looms in race for Cadbury

Kraft may have to use cash for higher offer to satisfy shareholders

ATLANTA, Georgia: Kraft Foods Inc, facing a deadline to make a revised bid for Cadbury Plc today, would have to use cash, rather than stock, for a higher offer to keep its own shareholders satisfied.

Billionaire investor William Ackman last week joined Warren Buffett, Kraft's biggest shareholder, in saying Kraft risks diminishing the merits of a Cadbury takeover by issuing too much stock to pay for it. Kraft's 11 billion-pound ($17.9 billion) cash-and-stock bid values the UK chocolate maker at 771 pence a share, below Cadbury's closing price of 794 pence on Jan 15.