Kraft Heinz → Unilever
A $143bn approach withdrawn 48 hours after being made public — the shortest life of any mega-deal in the modern record.
An unsolicited approach withdrawn within three days of becoming public after Unilever's board rejected it.
- Value
- $143B
- Announced
- February 2017
- Outcome
- Terminated
- Sector
- Consumer
- Deal type
- acquisition
- Acquirer
- Kraft Heinz (United States)
- Target
- Unilever (United Kingdom)
Why it mattered
Kraft Heinz — the 3G Capital/Berkshire vehicle built on aggressive cost-outs — had run its playbook to its limit inside North American packaged food and needed a much larger revenue base to keep the model working. Unilever, with roughly twice Kraft Heinz's sales and an emerging-markets footprint the American company lacked, was the only target big enough to matter.
The story
Kraft Heinz made its approach privately on Thursday 16 February 2017: $50 per share, half cash and half stock, an 18% premium. Unilever's board rejected the same day. When the approach leaked on Friday 17 February, Unilever's stock jumped 13% and CEO Paul Polman lobbied Downing Street directly, framing the bid as a hostile foreign takeover with post-Brexit political implications. Kraft Heinz withdrew on Sunday 19 February. Total elapsed time in public: about 55 hours.
What it left behind
Unilever emerged transformed — accelerating a five-year restructuring, selling its spreads division to KKR for €6.8bn, buying back €5bn of stock, and reorganising into three divisions. Kraft Heinz never approached anything at that scale again and later wrote down $15bn against its own core brands in 2019. The 48-hour rejection is now the standard defence-adviser example of what a well-prepared board can do to a friendly approach.
At a glance
- Structure
- Friendly approach, cash + stock
- Premium offered
- ~18%
- Approach made
- 16 Feb 2017
- Leaked
- 17 Feb 2017
- Withdrawn
- 19 Feb 2017
- Backed by
- 3G Capital & Berkshire Hathaway
- Unilever price move on leak
- +13%
- Break fee
- None (no signed agreement)