It was probably inevitable that Cadbury would be taken over, the vultures had been circling for months, it was just a matter of time. What a great shame though. I’ve mentioned the story before on here, but now the deal is done it’s worth thinking about the implications for a moment. A company with a long and laudable history of social justice gets consumed by a company with no such claim. In many ways this takeover personifies the identities of the two countries involved. The UK has a market driven economy and a history of enterprising individuals creating successful business. Often they have also had a great sense of social justice and acted to improve the lives of the poorly paid workers on whose toil  profits are made. People such a George Cadbury fit this mould. In addition, the social welfare net in the UK acts to protect the exploitation of workers by making sure they can at least feed themselves and get access to free  healthcare.

By contrast large US businesses such as Kraft, who employ just under 100,000 people worldwide, grew up in a world with far fewer employee rights and virtually no social welfare net to protect people against poor health and hardship. Freed from this responsibility companies in the Kraft mould have grown bigger and faster than Cadbury, for them it’s all about the bottom line, profit in monetary terms. So in the global marketplace the Cadbury aquisition makes sense for Kraft, and even more sense considering they were apparently expecting to pay over £10 a share before the recession hit, now they’ve picked it up for only £8,40. Kraft get an iconic brand and more importantly a quality product; I’ve tried many American chocolate bars, all are dissapointing,  and in some cases I’ve cut out the middleman thrown it straight in the bin after the first bite.

Why did the Cadbury shareholders  fold so early in the game and accept defeat? It seems largely because many of them were American investors, with the biggest one being Californian Investment Managers Franklin Templeton.  So the decision to conceed Cadbury to a US multinational was largely in the hands of US asset managers, not British shareholders with perhaps more than a financial attachment to Cadbury.

These are the rules of the game though.  With protectionism frowned upon by those who regulate trade and investment (again mostly from the US) the big fish are free to eat the little fish at will. This means that the UK, down the pecking order nowadays  in the scheme of things, could end up having no successful home-grown, home-owned large enterprise at all. Why is this a bad thing? Because profits made here will go back to bank accounts in the home country, because industrial relations (or lack of) will be framed by what happens in the home country, and because ‘downsizing’ if needed will happen in the home country last. It’s far easier for a US company to weather UK job losses than those in its own back yard.

In the global oder of things the aquistion of Cadbury sends a clear message; everything is up for grabs. No matter where, how big, or how long established, every business is purchasable if you have deep enough pockets. The fact that you live half a world away and care not for the heritage, history or ethos of a business matters not.

A sad state of affairs for Cadbury employees, Cadbury lovers, and ‘UK PLC’ overall. The same globalisation that brought us a £5 pair of jeans, also brings us subservience to foreign multinationals. Ultimately, ‘UK PLC’ could become just another franchise operation, owned and operated by fat cats in the USA. A country which itself has one of the highest levels of inequality in the world.

I’m off to buy some Creme Eggs before they get smaller, or less tasty!