Kraft Foods Inc. (
NYSE:
KFT) is the largest
food and
beverage company headquartered in
North America and the second largest in the world after
Nestlé SA.The Philip Morris Company (now known as
Altria Group), a company that produces
tobacco products, acquired Kraft for $12.9 billion in 1988, eventually merging it with another food subsidiary,
General Foods, which it had acquired in
1985. In
2000, Philip Morris acquired
Nabisco and merged it with Kraft. Altria sold 280 million Kraft shares via an initial public offering in
2001, retaining an 88.1% stake. On
January 31,
2007, after months of speculation, the company announced that its 88.1% stake would be spun off to Altria shareholders, however the exact date is not expected to be announced until January 2008
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