Mondelez International
Mondelez International, Inc., often stylized as Mondelēz, is an American multinational confectionery, food, holding and beverage company based in Chicago, Illinois, which employs approximately 80,000 individuals around the world. It consists of the global snack and food brands of Kraft Foods Inc. after the October 2012 spin-off of its North American grocery-foods products. The Mondelez name is a coined word adopted in 2012 that was suggested by Kraft Foods employees, and is derived from the Latin word mundus and delez, a fanciful modification of the word "delicious."
The company manufactures chocolate, cookies, biscuits, gum, confectionery, and powdered beverages. Mondelez International's portfolio includes several billion-dollar components and includes cookie and cracker brands Belvita, Chips Ahoy!, Oreo, Ritz, TUC, Triscuit, LU, Club Social, Barny, and Peek Freans; chocolate brands Milka, Côte d'Or, Toblerone, Cadbury, Green & Black's, Freia, Marabou, Fry's, and Lacta; gum and cough drop brands Trident, Dentyne, Chiclets, Halls, and Stride; as well as Tate's Bake Shop and powdered beverage brand Tang.
The company has an annual revenue of about $26 billion and operates in approximately 160 countries. The company ranked No. 117 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
Mondelez Canada holds the rights to Christie Brown and Company, which consists of brands such as Mr. Christie and Dad's Cookies. Its head office is in Mississauga, Ontario, with operations in Toronto, Hamilton, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec.
History
Before Mondelez International
Mondelez International is rooted in the National Dairy Products Corporation, which was founded on December 10, 1923, by Thomas H. McInnerney and Edward E. Rieck. The firm was initially set up to execute on a rollup strategy in the fragmented United States ice cream industry.In 1924, Kraft Cheese Company was founded and was listed on the Chicago Stock Exchange. Two years later, it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1928, it acquired Phenix Cheese Company, the maker of a cream cheese branded as Philadelphia cream cheese, founded by Jason F. Whitney, Sr. and the company changed its name to Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company.
In 1930, National Dairy acquired Kraft Phenix. After the acquisition, the combined company retained the National Dairy name and management, though the Kraft Phenix side of the company continued to operate largely independently.
On September 7, 2009, Kraft made a hostile £10.2 billion takeover bid for the British confectionery group Cadbury, makers of Dairy Milk and Bournville chocolate. On November 9 the company's bid was rejected by Cadbury, which called it a "derisory" offer. Kraft renewed the offer on December 4. It had significant political and public opposition in the United Kingdom and abroad, leading to a call for the government to implement economic protectionism in large-company takeovers. On January 19, 2010, Cadbury approved a revised offer from Kraft which valued the company at £11.5 billion. Some funds for the takeover were provided by the Royal Bank of Scotland, the British partially state-owned bank.
Cadbury sales were flat after Kraft's acquisition. Despite the Cadbury takeover's helping to boost sales by 30 percent, Kraft's net profit for the fourth quarter fell 24 percent due to costs associated with integrating the UK business after the acquisition. Kraft spent $1.3 billion on integration to achieve an estimated $675 million in annual savings by the end of 2012. Kraft increased prices to offset rising commodity costs in North America and Europe. According to Rosenfeld, "We expect it will remain weak for the foreseeable future." Taking into account integration costs, the acquisition reduced Kraft's earnings per share by about 33% immediately after the Cadbury purchase.
In August 2011 Kraft Foods announced plans to split into two publicly traded companies, an international snack-food company and a North American grocery company.
The snack-food company, Mondelez International, would be the legal successor of the old Kraft Foods, while the grocery company would be a new company, Kraft Foods Group. The split was completed in October 2012. It was structured so that Kraft Foods changed its name to Mondelez International and spun off Kraft Foods Group as a new publicly traded company. Kraft Foods Group later merged with Heinz to become Kraft Heinz.
Mondelez International
In 2014, the company announced a merger of its coffee business with the Dutch firm Douwe Egberts; the company would be named Jacobs Douwe Egberts. The merger was confirmed on May 6, 2014, and completed on July 2, 2015.On June 30, 2016, Mondelez made a $23 billion offer to buy its smaller rival, Hershey. The half-cash, half-stock deal valued Hershey stock at $107 a share. Hershey's board, however, unanimously rejected the offer.
In August 2017, it was announced that Dirk Van de Put, Belgian CEO of McCain Foods, would succeed Irene Rosenfeld as CEO in November 2017.
On May 6, 2018, Mondelez agreed to buy cookie maker Tate's Bake Shop for approximately $500 million. The acquisition was completed on June 7, 2018.
On June 19, 2019, Mondelez agreed to acquire a majority interest in Perfect Snacks, owner of refrigerated protein bar Perfect Bar. The acquisition was completed on July 16.
On February 25, 2020, Mondelez announced that it was acquiring a majority stake in Toronto-based Give & Go, a maker of two-bite brownies. The acquisition was completed on April 3, 2020.
Finances
For the fiscal year 2017, Mondelēz International reported earnings of US$2.922 billion, with an annual revenue of US$25.896 billion, a decline of 0.1% over the previous fiscal cycle. Mondelēz International's shares traded at over $42 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$58.8 billion in October 2018. In the first quarter of 2020, due to Covid-19 lockdowns and people stocking up with sweets, the company's sales grew by 15% in North America, increasing its overall revenue by almost 3%.| Year | Revenue in mil. USD$ | Net income in mil. USD$ | Total assets in mil. USD$ | Price per share in USD$ | Employees |
| 2005 | 34,113 | 2,632 | 57,628 | 14.42 | |
| 2006 | 33,256 | 3,060 | 55,574 | 15.24 | |
| 2007 | 35,858 | 2,721 | 67,993 | 16.33 | |
| 2008 | 40,492 | 2,884 | 63,173 | 15.28 | |
| 2009 | 38,754 | 3,021 | 66,714 | 13.68 | |
| 2010 | 31,489 | 4,114 | 95,289 | 16.43 | |
| 2011 | 35,810 | 3,554 | 93,837 | 19.21 | |
| 2012 | 35,015 | 3,067 | 75,477 | 23.06 | |
| 2013 | 35,299 | 3,915 | 72,515 | 28.09 | 107,000 |
| 2014 | 34,244 | 2,184 | 66,771 | 33.41 | 104,000 |
| 2015 | 29,636 | 7,267 | 62,843 | 38.64 | 99,000 |
| 2016 | 25,923 | 1,659 | 61,538 | 41.15 | 90,000 |
| 2017 | 25,896 | 2,922 | 63,109 | 42.46 | 83,000 |
Controversies
Deforestation
In September 2017, an investigation conducted by NGO Mighty Earth found that a large amount of the cocoa used in chocolate produced by Mondelez and other major chocolate companies was grown illegally in national parks and other protected areas in Ivory Coast and Ghana. The countries are the world's two largest cocoa producers.The report documents how in several national parks and other protected areas, 90% or more of the land mass has been converted to cocoa. Less than four percent of Ivory Coast remains densely forested, and the chocolate companies' laissez-faire approach to sourcing has driven extensive deforestation in Ghana as well. In Ivory Coast, deforestation has pushed chimpanzees into just a few small pockets, and reduced the country's elephant population from several hundred thousand to about 200–400.
In November 2018, an investigation by Greenpeace International found that 22 palm oil suppliers to Mondelez International cleared over 70,000 hectares of rainforest from 2015 to 2017.