Form 10-K

 

 

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

(Mark one)   FORM 10-K  

[X] ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009

OR

[    ] TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

COMMISSION FILE NUMBER 1-16483

LOGO

Kraft Foods Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

Virginia   52-2284372
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)   (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)
Three Lakes Drive, Northfield, Illinois   60093
(Address of principal executive offices)   (Zip Code)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code:  847-646-2000

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

Title of each class

 

Name of each exchange on which registered

Class A Common Stock, no par value   New York Stock Exchange

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:  None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes x No ¨

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ¨ No x

Note: Checking the box above will not relieve any registrant required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Exchange Act from their obligations under those Sections.

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes x No ¨

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

 

Large accelerated filer x    Accelerated filer ¨    Non-accelerated filer ¨    Smaller reporting company ¨
   (Do not check if a smaller reporting company)             

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes ¨ No x

The aggregate market value of the shares of Class A Common Stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant, computed by reference to the closing price of such stock on June 30, 2009, was $37 billion. At January 29, 2010, there were 1,479,371,197 shares of the registrant’s Class A Common Stock outstanding.

Documents Incorporated by Reference

Portions of the registrant’s definitive proxy statement to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its annual meeting of shareholders to be held on May 18, 2010 are incorporated by reference into Part III hereof.

 

 

 


Kraft Foods Inc.

Table of Contents

 

                Page No.    
Part I -        
Item 1.     

Business

   1
Item 1A.     

Risk Factors

   10
Item 1B.     

Unresolved Staff Comments

   14
Item 2.     

Properties

   14
Item 3.     

Legal Proceedings

   14
Item 4.     

Submission of Matters to a Vote of Security Holders

   14
Part II -        
Item 5.     

Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters
and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

   15
Item 6.     

Selected Financial Data

   17
Item 7.     

Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and
Results of Operations

   18
    

Discussion and Analysis

   19
    

Critical Accounting Policies

   37
    

Commodity Trends

   43
    

Liquidity

   44
    

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements and Aggregate Contractual
Obligations

   47
    

Equity and Dividends

   48
Item 7A.     

Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk

   53
Item 8.     

Financial Statements and Supplementary Data

  
    

Consolidated Statements of Earnings for the years ended December 31,
2009, 2008 and 2007

   55
    

Consolidated Balance Sheets at December 31, 2009 and 2008

   56
    

Consolidated Statements of Equity for the years ended December 31,
2009, 2008 and 2007

   57
    

Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the years ended
December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007

   58
    

Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

   59
Item 9.     

Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and
Financial Disclosure

   105
Item 9A.     

Controls and Procedures

   105
    

Report of Management on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

   106
    

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

   107
Item 9B.     

Other Information

   108
Part III -        
Item 10.     

Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance

   108
Item 11.     

Executive Compensation

   108
Item 12.     

Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management
and Related Stockholder Matters

   108
Item 13.     

Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director
Independence

   108
Item 14.     

Principal Accountant Fees and Services

   108
Part IV -        
Item 15.     

Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules

   109
    

Signatures

   112
    

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm
on Financial Statement Schedule

   S-1
    

Valuation and Qualifying Accounts

   S-2

In this report, “Kraft Foods,” “we,” “us” and “our” refers to Kraft Foods Inc. and subsidiaries, and “Common Stock” refers to Kraft Foods’ Class A common stock.

 

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PART I

Item 1.  Business.

General

Kraft Foods is the world’s second largest food company, with revenues of $40.4 billion and earnings from continuing operations before income taxes of $4.3 billion in 2009. Kraft Foods was incorporated in 2000 in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We have approximately 97,000 employees worldwide, and we manufacture and market packaged food products, including snacks, beverages, cheese, convenient meals and various packaged grocery products. We sell our products to consumers in approximately 160 countries. At December 31, 2009, we had operations in more than 70 countries and made our products at 159 manufacturing and processing facilities worldwide. At December 31, 2009, we had net assets of $25.9 billion and gross assets of $66.7 billion. We are a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Standard & Poor’s 500, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Ethibel Sustainability Index.

At December 31, 2009, our portfolio included nine brands with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion each: Kraft cheeses, dinners and dressings; Oscar Mayer meats; Philadelphia cream cheese; Maxwell House and Jacobs coffee; Nabisco cookies and crackers and its Oreo cookie brand; Milka chocolates; and LU biscuits. Our portfolio included approximately 50 brands which each generate annual revenues of more than $100 million.

Prior to June 13, 2001, Kraft Foods was a wholly owned subsidiary of Altria Group, Inc. (“Altria”). On June 13, 2001, we completed an initial public offering of 280,000,000 shares of our Common Stock. In the first quarter of 2007, Altria spun off its remaining interest (89.0%) in Kraft Foods on a pro rata basis to Altria stockholders in a tax-free transaction. Effective as of the close of business on March 30, 2007, all Kraft Foods shares owned by Altria were distributed to Altria’s stockholders, and our separation from Altria was completed.

Because Kraft Foods Inc. is a holding company, our principal source of funds is from our subsidiaries. Our wholly owned subsidiaries currently are not limited by long-term debt or other agreements in their ability to pay cash dividends or make other distributions with respect to their common stock.

Reportable Segments

We manage and report operating results through three geographic units: Kraft Foods North America, Kraft Foods Europe and Kraft Foods Developing Markets. We manage the operations of Kraft Foods North America and Kraft Foods Europe by product category, and we manage the operations of Kraft Foods Developing Markets by location. Our reportable segments are U.S. Beverages, U.S. Cheese, U.S. Convenient Meals, U.S. Grocery, U.S. Snacks, Canada & North America Foodservice, Kraft Foods Europe (formerly known as European Union) and Kraft Foods Developing Markets.

In January 2009, we began implementing changes to our operating structure based on our Organizing For Growth initiative and the Kraft Foods Europe Reorganization. In line with our strategies, we are reorganizing our European operations to function on a pan-European centralized category management and value chain model, and we changed how we work in Europe in two key ways:

 

   

We transitioned our European Biscuit, Chocolate, Coffee and Cheese categories to fully integrated business units, further strengthening our focus on these core categories. To ensure decisions are made faster and closer to our customers and consumers, each category is fully accountable for its financial results, including marketing, manufacturing and R&D. Category leadership, based in Zurich, Switzerland, reports to the Kraft Foods Europe President. These business units now comprise the Kraft Foods Europe segment.

   

We aligned the reporting of our Central Europe operations into our Kraft Foods Developing Markets segment to help build critical scale in these countries. We operate a country-led model in these markets.

Note 16, Segment Reporting, to our consolidated financial statements includes a breakout of net revenues, segment operating income, total assets, depreciation expense and capital expenditures by reportable segment, as well as a breakout of net revenues, long-lived assets and total assets by geographic region. Management uses segment

 

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operating income to evaluate segment performance and allocate resources. We believe it is appropriate to disclose this measure to help investors analyze segment performance and trends. Segment operating income excludes unrealized gains and losses on hedging activities (which are a component of cost of sales), certain components of our U.S. pension plan cost (which is a component of cost of sales and marketing, administration and research costs), general corporate expenses (which are a component of marketing, administration and research costs) and amortization of intangibles.

The relative percentages of total segment operating income attributable to each reportable segment were:

 

              For the Years Ended December 31,          
                  2009            2008            2007              
 

Kraft Foods North America:

                 
 

U.S. Beverages

      8.8%    8.7%    7.9%      
 

U.S. Cheese

      11.5%    12.9%    11.1%      
 

U.S. Convenient Meals

      8.8%    7.7%    7.3%      
 

U.S. Grocery

      19.7%    23.1%    23.4%      
 

U.S. Snacks

      12.5%    14.6%    16.4%      
 

Canada & N.A. Foodservice

      9.1%    10.2%    10.1%      
 

Kraft Foods Europe (1)

      13.5%    4.2%    10.4%      
 

Kraft Foods Developing Markets

      16.1%    18.6%    13.4%      
                         
 

Total Kraft Segment Operating
Income

         100.0%       100.0%       100.0%      
                         
 

 

(1)    This segment was formerly known as European Union.

 

Our brands span five consumer sectors:

 

•      Snacks - primarily biscuits (cookies and crackers), salted snacks and chocolate confectionery;

•      Beverages - primarily coffee, packaged juice drinks and powdered beverages;

•      Cheese - primarily natural, processed and cream cheeses;

•      Grocery - primarily spoonable and pourable dressings, condiments and desserts; and

•      Convenient Meals - primarily processed meats, frozen pizza, packaged dinners and lunch combinations.

 

The following table shows each reportable segment’s participation in these five core consumer sectors.

 

                   
         Percentage of 2009 Net Revenues by Consumer Sector (1)
    

Segment

       Snacks        Beverages    Cheese        Grocery        Convenient
    Meals    
       Total    
 

Kraft Foods North America:

                 
 

U.S. Beverages

   -       38.0%    -       -       -       7.6%
 

U.S. Cheese

   -       -       53.1%    -       -       8.9%
 

U.S. Convenient Meals

   -       -       -       -       69.7%    11.1%
 

U.S. Grocery

   0.9%    -       -       55.1%    16.6%    8.6%
 

U.S. Snacks

   32.0%    -       0.9%    2.1%    -       12.3%
 

Canada & N.A. Foodservice

   6.5%    6.1%    19.3%    19.8%    7.8%    10.1%
                               
 

Total Kraft Foods North
America

   39.4%    44.1%    73.3%    77.0%    94.1%    58.6%
                               
 

Kraft Foods Europe

   31.8%    29.8%    14.3%    9.1%    4.1%    21.7%
 

Kraft Foods Developing Markets

   28.8%    26.1%    12.4%    13.9%    1.8%    19.7%
                               
 

Total Kraft Foods

   100.0%    100.0%    100.0%    100.0%    100.0%    100.0%
                               
 

Consumer Sector Percentage
of Total Kraft Foods

           37.2%            19.9%            16.8%            10.1%            16.0%            100.0%
                               
 

 

(1)    Percentages were calculated based upon dollars rounded to millions.

Our U.S. subsidiaries export coffee products, refreshment beverage products, grocery products, cheese, biscuits and processed meats. In 2009, these U.S. exports amounted to $522 million.

 

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Products or similar products contributing 10% or more to Kraft Foods’ consolidated net revenues for the years ended December 31, were:

 

             2009            2008            2007            
 

Biscuits (cookies and crackers)

   23%    22%    16%    
 

Cheese

   17%    18%    19%    
 

Coffee

   13%    13%    14%    
 

Confectionery

   11%    12%    12%    

Our major brands within each reportable segment and consumer sector at December 31, 2009 were:

 

Kraft Foods North America:

U.S. Beverages

   

Beverages:

    Maxwell House, Starbucks (under license), Gevalia, General Foods International, Yuban and Seattle’s Best (under license) coffees; Tassimo hot beverage system; Capri Sun (under license) and Kool-Aid packaged juice drinks; Kool-Aid, Crystal Light and Country Time powdered beverages; and Tazo (under license) teas.

U.S. Cheese

   

Cheese:

    Kraft and Cracker Barrel natural cheeses; Philadelphia cream cheese; Kraft grated cheeses; Polly-O and Athenos cheese; Velveeta and Cheez Whiz processed cheeses; Kraft and Deli Deluxe processed cheese slices; and Breakstone’s and Knudsen cottage cheese and sour cream.

U.S. Convenient Meals

   

Convenient Meals:

    Oscar Mayer and Louis Rich cold cuts, hot dogs and bacon; Lunchables lunch combinations; DiGiorno, Tombstone, Jack’s and California Pizza Kitchen (under license) frozen pizzas; Boca soy-based meat alternatives; Deli Creations complete sandwiches; and Claussen pickles.

U.S. Grocery

   

Grocery:

    Jell-O dry packaged desserts; Cool Whip whipped topping; Jell-O refrigerated gelatin and pudding snacks; Jet-Puffed marshmallows; Kraft and Miracle Whip spoonable dressings; Kraft and Good Seasons salad dressings; A.1. steak sauce; Kraft and Bull’s-Eye barbecue sauces; Grey Poupon premium mustards; Shake N’ Bake coatings; and Baker’s chocolate and baking ingredients.

Convenient Meals:

    Kraft and Kraft Deluxe macaroni and cheese dinners; Stove Top stuffing mix; Taco Bell Home Originals (under license) meal kits; and Velveeta shells and cheese dinners.

U.S. Snacks

   

Snacks:

    Oreo, Chips Ahoy!, Newtons, Nilla, Nutter Butter and SnackWell’s cookies; Ritz, Premium, Triscuit, Wheat Thins, Cheese Nips, Flavor Originals, Honey Maid grahams, Teddy Grahams and Kraft macaroni and cheese crackers; Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs; Planters nuts and trail mixes; Handi-Snacks two-compartment snacks; and Back to Nature granola, cookies, crackers, nuts and fruit & nut mixes.

Cheese:

    Easy Cheese cheese spread.

Canada & N.A. Foodservice

    Canada and foodservice products span all Kraft Foods North America segments and sectors. Canadian brand offerings include Delissio pizza, Nabob coffee, Kraft peanut butter and Peek Freans biscuits, as well as a range of products bearing brand names similar to those marketed in the U.S. The N.A. Foodservice business sells primarily branded products including Maxwell House coffee, Oreo cookies, A.1. steak sauce, and a broad array of Kraft sauces, dressings and cheeses.

 

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Kraft Foods Europe:

       

Snacks:

    Milka, Suchard, Côte d’Or, Marabou, Toblerone, Freia, Terry’s, Daim / Dime, Lacta, Pavlides, Twist, Merenda and Mirabell chocolate confectionery products; and Oreo, Digestive, Tuc, Mini-Star, Mikado (under license), Ourson, Petit Déjeuner, Cracotte, Belin, Heudebert, Grany, Petit Écolier, Saiwa, Oro, Fonzies, Start, Prince and Belvita biscuits.

Beverages:

    Jacobs, Gevalia, Carte Noire, Jacques Vabre, Kaffee HAG, Grand’ Mère, Kenco, Saimaza, Maxwell House, Onko, Splendid, Starbucks (under license) and Karat coffees; Tassimo hot beverage system; Tang powdered beverages; and Suchard Express, O’Boy and Kaba chocolate drinks.

Cheese:

    Dairylea, Sottilette, Osella and El Caserío cheeses; and Philadelphia cream cheese.

Grocery:

    Kraft pourable and spoonable salad dressings; Miracel Whip spoonable dressings; and Mirácoli sauces.

Convenient Meals:

    Lunchables lunch combinations; Mirácoli pasta dinners and sauces; and Simmenthal canned meats.

Kraft Foods Developing Markets:

Snacks:

    Milka, Toblerone, Lacta, Côte d’Or, Shot, Terrabusi, Suchard, Alpen Gold, Karuna, Korona, Poiana, Svoge, Ukraina, Vozdushny, Chudny Vecher, Terry’s, Figaro, Prince Polo / Siesta, Piros, Mogyoros and Gallito chocolate confectionery products; Oreo, Chips Ahoy!, Ritz, Club Social, Express, Kraker Bran, Honey Bran, Aveny Bran, Marbu, Variedad, Pacific, Belvita, Cerealitas, Lucky, Trakinas, Tuc, Mikado (under license), Ourson, Petit Déjeuner, Cracotte, Bolshevik, Prichuda, Jubilee, Major, Merendina, Jacob’s, Chipsmore, Twisties, Biskuat / Tiger, Milk Biscuit, Hi Calcium Soda, Pépito, Gyori and PIM’s biscuits; and Estrella, Kar, Lux and Planters nuts and salted snacks.

Beverages:

    Maxwell House, Maxim, Carte Noire, Nova Brasilia and Jacobs coffee; and Tang, Clight, Kool-Aid, Verao, Frisco, Q-Refres-Ko, Royal and Fresh powdered beverages.

Cheese:

    Kraft, Velveeta and Eden processed cheeses; Philadelphia cream cheese; Kraft natural cheese; and Cheez Whiz processed cheese spread.

Grocery:

    Royal dry packaged desserts; Kraft spoonable and pourable salad dressings; Miracle Whip spoonable dressings; Jell-O dessert toppings; Kraft peanut butter; and Vegemite yeast spread.

Convenient Meals:

    Kraft macaroni and cheese dinners.

Significant Acquisitions and Divestitures

Cadbury Acquisition:

On January 19, 2010, we announced the terms of our final offer for each outstanding ordinary share of Cadbury plc (“Cadbury”), including each ordinary share represented by an American Depositary Share (“Cadbury ADS”), and the Cadbury board of directors recommended that Cadbury shareholders accept the terms of the final offer. Under the terms of the offer, we agreed to pay Cadbury shareholders 500 pence in cash and 0.1874 shares of Kraft Foods Common Stock per Cadbury ordinary share validly tendered and 2,000 pence in cash and 0.7496 shares of Kraft Foods Common Stock per Cadbury ADS validly tendered. This valued each Cadbury ordinary share at 840 pence and each Cadbury ADS at £33.60 (based on the closing price of $29.58 for a share of Kraft Foods Common Stock on January 15, 2010 and an exchange rate of $1.63 per £1.00) and valued the entire issued share capital of Cadbury at £11.9 billion (approximately $19.4 billion) on January 15, 2010, the last trading day before the publication of our final offer. The combination of Kraft Foods and Cadbury will create a global powerhouse in snacks, confectionery and quick meals with a rich portfolio of iconic brands.

On February 2, 2010, all of the conditions to the offer were satisfied or validly waived, the initial offer period expired and a subsequent offer period immediately began. At that point, we had received acceptances of 71.73% of the outstanding Cadbury ordinary shares, including those represented by Cadbury ADSs. The subsequent offer period remains open until further notice and at least 14 days of notice will be given if Kraft Foods decides to close the offer. As of February 15, 2010, we had received acceptances of 1,262,356,520 shares representing 91.02% of the outstanding Cadbury ordinary shares, including those represented by Cadbury ADSs. As we have received

 

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acceptances of over 90% of Cadbury shares, we are in the process of acquiring the remaining Cadbury ordinary shares that are not tendered in the offer, including those represented by Cadbury ADSs, through a compulsory acquisition procedure under the United Kingdom Companies Act of 2006, as amended. Additionally, as a condition of the EU Commission’s approval of the Cadbury acquisition, we are required to divest confectionary operations in Poland and Romania. As part of our acquisition of Cadbury, we expensed approximately $40 million in transaction related fees in 2009 as we incurred them, and we also incurred $40 million in financing fees in 2009 related to the acquisition.

Pizza Divestiture:

On January 4, 2010, we entered into an agreement to sell the assets of our North American frozen pizza business (“Frozen Pizza”) to Nestlé USA, Inc. (“Nestlé”) for total consideration of $3.7 billion. Our Frozen Pizza business is a component of our U.S. Convenient Meals and Canada & N.A. Foodservice segments. The sale, which is subject to customary conditions, including regulatory clearances, includes the DiGiorno, Tombstone and Jack’s brands in the U.S., the Delissio brand in Canada and the California Pizza Kitchen trademark license. It also includes two Wisconsin manufacturing facilities (Medford and Little Chute) and the leases for the pizza depots and delivery trucks. It is estimated that approximately 3,400 of our employees will transfer with the business to Nestlé. We anticipate that the transaction will close in the first quarter of 2010.

Post Cereals Split-off:

On August 4, 2008, we completed the split-off of the Post cereals business into Ralcorp Holdings, Inc., after an exchange with our shareholders. Accordingly, the Post cereals business prior period results were reflected as discontinued operations on the consolidated statement of earnings. The exchange was expected to be tax-free to participating shareholders for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

In this split-off transaction, approximately 46.1 million shares of Kraft Foods Common Stock were tendered for $1,644 million. Our shareholders had the option to exchange some or all of their shares of Kraft Foods Common Stock and receive shares of common stock of Cable Holdco, Inc. (“Cable Holdco”). Cable Holdco was our wholly owned subsidiary that owned certain assets and liabilities of the Post cereals business. In exchange for the contribution of the Post cereals business, Cable Holdco issued approximately $665 million in debt securities, issued shares of its common stock and assumed a $300 million credit facility. Upon closing, we used the cash equivalent net proceeds, approximately $960 million, to repay debt. As a result of the split-off, we recorded a gain on discontinued operations of $926 million, or $0.61 per diluted share, in 2008.

LU Biscuit Acquisition:

On November 30, 2007, we acquired the Groupe Danone S.A. global LU biscuit business (“LU Biscuit”) for 5.1 billion (approximately $7.6 billion) in cash. The acquisition included 32 manufacturing facilities and approximately 14,000 employees. LU Biscuit reports results from operations on a one month lag; accordingly, there was no effect on our 2007 operating results. On a proforma basis, LU Biscuit would have contributed net revenues of $2.8 billion during 2007, and LU Biscuit’s contribution to net earnings would have been insignificant to Kraft Foods.

See Note 2, Acquisitions and Divestitures, to our consolidated financial statements for additional information on these transactions.

Customers

Our five largest customers accounted for approximately 27% of our net revenues in 2009 compared with 27% in 2008 and 29% in 2007. Our ten largest customers accounted for approximately 36% of our net revenues in 2009 compared with 36% in 2008 and 40% in 2007. One of our customers, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., accounted for approximately 16% of our net revenues in 2009 compared with 16% in 2008 and 15% in 2007.

Seasonality

Demand for some of our products may be influenced by holidays, changes in seasons or other annual events. However, overall sales of our products are generally evenly balanced throughout the year due to the offsetting nature of demands for our diversified product portfolio.

 

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Competition

We face competition in all aspects of our business. Competitors include large national and international companies and numerous local and regional companies. Some competitors have different profit objectives and some international competitors are less susceptible to currency exchange rates. We also compete with generic products and retailer brands, wholesalers and cooperatives. We compete primarily on the basis of product quality, brand recognition, brand loyalty, service, marketing, advertising and price. Moreover, improving our market position or introducing a new product requires substantial advertising and promotional expenditures.

Distribution and Marketing

Our products are generally sold to supermarket chains, wholesalers, supercenters, club stores, mass merchandisers, distributors, convenience stores, gasoline stations, drug stores, value stores and other retail food outlets. In general, the retail trade for food products is consolidating. Food products are distributed through distribution centers, satellite warehouses, company-operated and public cold-storage facilities, depots and other facilities. We currently distribute most products in North America through a combination of direct store delivery and warehouse delivery. Outside of North America, our products are distributed through warehouse delivery and through the services of independent sales offices and agents.

Our marketing efforts are conducted through three principal sets of activities: (i) consumer marketing in broadcast, print, outdoor and on-line media; (ii) consumer incentives such as coupons and contests; and (iii) trade promotions to support price features, displays and other merchandising of our products by our customers.

Raw Materials and Packaging

We are a major purchaser of dairy, coffee, cocoa, wheat, corn products, soybean and vegetable oils, nuts, meat products, and sugar and other sweeteners. We also use significant quantities of plastic, glass and cardboard to package our products, and natural gas for our factories and warehouses. We continuously monitor worldwide supply and cost trends of these commodities so we can act quickly to obtain ingredients and packaging needed for production.

We purchase our dairy raw material requirements, including milk and cheese, from independent third parties such as agricultural cooperatives and independent processors. The prices for milk and other dairy product purchases are substantially influenced by market supply and demand, as well as by government programs. Dairy commodity costs on average were lower in 2009 than in 2008. Significant cost items in our biscuit and grocery products are grains (wheat, corn and soybean oil). Grain costs have experienced significant volatility as a result of burgeoning global demand for food, livestock feed and biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Grain costs on average were relatively flat from 2008 to 2009. The most significant cost item in coffee products is green coffee beans, which are purchased on world markets. Green coffee bean prices are affected by the quality and availability of supply, changes in the value of the U.S. dollar in relation to certain other currencies and consumer demand for coffee products. Green coffee bean costs on average were lower in 2009 than in 2008. A significant cost item in chocolate confectionery products is cocoa, which is purchased on world markets, and the price of which is affected by the quality and availability of supply and changes in the value of the British pound and the U.S. dollar relative to certain other currencies. Cocoa bean and cocoa butter costs on average were higher in 2009 than in 2008.

During 2009, our aggregate commodity costs decreased primarily as a result of lower dairy costs. For 2009, our commodity costs were approximately $150 million lower than 2008, following an increase of approximately $2.0 billion in 2008 compared to 2007. Overall, we expect commodity costs to continue to be volatile in 2010.

The prices paid for raw materials and agricultural materials used in our products generally reflect external factors such as weather conditions, commodity market fluctuations, currency fluctuations and the effects of governmental agricultural programs. Although the prices of the principal raw materials can be expected to fluctuate as a result of these factors, we believe there will be an adequate supply of the raw materials we use and that they are generally available from numerous sources. We use hedging techniques to limit the impact of price fluctuations in our principal raw materials. However, we do not fully hedge against changes in commodity prices, and these strategies may not protect us from increases in specific raw material costs.

 

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Intellectual Property

We consider our trademarks, in the aggregate, to be material to our business. We protect our trademarks by registration or otherwise in the U.S. and in other markets where we sell our products. Trademark protection continues in some countries for as long as the mark is used and in other countries for as long as it is registered. Registrations generally are for renewable, fixed terms. From time to time, we grant third parties licenses to use one or more of our trademarks in particular locations. Similarly, we sell some of our products under brands we license from third parties, including at December 31, 2009:

 

   

Starbucks coffee, Seattle’s Best coffee and Tazo teas for sale in U.S. grocery stores and other distribution channels;

   

Starbucks and Seattle’s Best coffee T-Discs and Tazo teas T-Discs for use in our Tassimo hot beverage system;

   

Capri Sun packaged juice drinks for sale in the U.S. and Canada;

   

Taco Bell Home Originals Mexican style food products for sale in U.S. grocery stores; and

   

California Pizza Kitchen frozen pizzas for sale in U.S. grocery stores.

Additionally, we own numerous patents worldwide. While our patent portfolio is material to our business, the loss of one patent or a group of related patents would not have a material adverse effect on our business. We have either been issued patents or have patent applications pending that relate to a number of current and potential products, including products licensed to others. Patents, issued or applied for, cover inventions ranging from basic packaging techniques to processes relating to specific products and to the products themselves. Our issued patents extend for varying periods according to the date of patent application filing or grant and the legal term of patents in the various countries where patent protection is obtained. The actual protection afforded by a patent, which can vary from country to country, depends upon the type of patent, the scope of its coverage as determined by the patent office or courts in the country, and the availability of legal remedies in the country. We consider that in the aggregate our patent applications, patents and licenses under patents owned by third parties are of material importance to our operations.

We also have proprietary trade secrets, technology, know-how processes and related intellectual property rights that are not registered.

Research and Development

We pursue four objectives in research and development: product safety and quality; growth through new products; superior consumer satisfaction; and reduced costs. We have approximately 2,300 food scientists, chemists and engineers working primarily in six key technology centers: East Hanover, New Jersey; Glenview, Illinois; Tarrytown, New York; Banbury, United Kingdom; Paris, France; and Munich, Germany. These technology centers are equipped with pilot plants and state-of-the-art instruments. Research and development expense was $477 million in 2009, $498 million in 2008 and $442 million in 2007.

Regulation

Our U.S. food products and packaging materials are primarily regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or, for products containing meat and poultry, the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These agencies enact and enforce regulations relating to the manufacturing, distribution and labeling of food products.

In addition, various states regulate our U.S. operations by licensing plants, enforcing federal and state standards for selected food products, grading food products, inspecting plants and warehouses, regulating trade practices related to the sale of dairy products and imposing their own labeling requirements on food products.

Many of the food commodities we use in our U.S. operations are subject to governmental agricultural programs. These programs have substantial effects on prices and supplies and are subject to periodic U.S. Congressional and administrative review.

 

7


All of our non-U.S. based operations are subject to local and national regulations, some of which are similar to those applicable to our U.S. operations. For example, in the European Union, we must comply with requirements that apply to labeling, packaging, food content, pricing, marketing and advertising and related areas.

Environmental Regulation

We are subject to various federal, state and local laws in the U.S. and laws and regulations outside of the U.S. relating to the protection of the environment. We accrue for environmental remediation obligations on an undiscounted basis when amounts are probable and can be reasonably estimated. The accruals are adjusted as new information develops or circumstances change. Recoveries of environmental remediation costs from third parties are recorded as assets when recovery of those costs is deemed probable. In the U.S., the laws and regulations include the Clean Air Act 1990, the Clean Water Act 1972, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 1976 and Superfund (the environmental program established to address abandoned hazardous waste sites), which imposes joint and severable liability on each responsible party. At December 31, 2009, our subsidiaries were involved in 71 active actions in the U.S. under Superfund legislation (and other similar actions) related to current operations and certain former or divested operations for which we retain liability.

Outside the U.S., we are subject to applicable multi-national, national and local environmental laws and regulations in the countries in which we do business. Outside the U.S., we have specific programs across our business units designed to meet applicable environmental compliance requirements.

Based on information currently available, we believe that the ultimate resolution of existing environmental remediation actions and our compliance in general with environmental laws and regulations will not have a material effect on our financial results. However, we cannot quantify with certainty the potential impact of future compliance efforts and environmental remediation actions.

Employees

At December 31, 2009, we employed approximately 97,000 people worldwide. Labor unions represent approximately 26% of our 40,000 U.S. employees. Most of the unionized workers at our U.S. locations are represented under contracts with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union; the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union; and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. These contracts expire at various times throughout the next several years. Outside the U.S., labor unions or workers’ councils represent approximately 60% of our 57,000 employees. Our business units are subject to various laws and regulations relating to their relationships with their employees. These laws and regulations are specific to the location of each business unit. In addition, in accordance with European Union requirements, we have established a European Works Council composed of management and elected members of our workforce. We believe that our relationships with employees and their representative organizations are good.

In 2008, we completed our five-year restructuring program. As part of the program, we announced the elimination of approximately 18,600 positions. As of December 31, 2009, we had eliminated approximately 17,300 of those positions.

Executive Officers of the Registrant

The following were our executive officers on February 25, 2010:

 

Name

     Age     

Title

Irene B. Rosenfeld

  56   Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

David A. Brearton

  49   Executive Vice President, Operations and Business Services

Michael A. Clarke

  45   Executive Vice President and President, Kraft Foods Europe

Marc S. Firestone

  50  

Executive Vice President, Corporate and Legal Affairs and General Counsel

Sanjay Khosla

  58   Executive Vice President and President, Kraft Foods International

Karen J. May

  51   Executive Vice President, Global Human Resources

Timothy R. McLevish

  54   Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Michael Osanloo

  43   Executive Vice President, Strategy

Jean E. Spence

  52   Executive Vice President, Research, Development and Quality

W. Anthony Vernon

  54   Executive Vice President and President, Kraft Foods North America

Mary Beth West

  47   Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

 

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Ms. Rosenfeld was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Kraft Foods in June 2006 and Chairman of the Board in March 2007. Prior to that, she had been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo, Inc., a food and beverage company, from September 2004 to June 2006. Previously, Ms. Rosenfeld was employed continuously by Kraft Foods, and its predecessor, General Foods Corporation, in various capacities from 1981 until 2003, including President of Kraft Foods North America. She is also a Trustee of Cornell University.

Mr. Brearton was appointed as Executive Vice President, Operations and Business Services effective January 1, 2008. Prior to that, he served as Executive Vice President, Global Business Services and Strategy, as Senior Vice President of Business Process Simplification and as Corporate Controller for Kraft Foods. He previously served as a Senior Vice President, Finance for Kraft Foods International. Mr. Brearton first joined Kraft Foods in 1984. Mr. Brearton is also on the Board of Directors of Feeding America.

Mr. Clarke joined Kraft Foods as President, Kraft Foods Europe on January 2, 2009 and was appointed Executive Vice President and President, Kraft Foods Europe on January 27, 2009. Prior to joining Kraft Foods, Mr. Clarke spent 12 years with The Coca-Cola Company, a beverage company, most recently serving as President of the Northwest Europe and Nordics businesses from August 2005 to December 2008 and as President of the South Pacific and Korea businesses from March 2000 to July 2005. Mr. Clarke is also on the Advisory Board of the Inspire Foundation.

Mr. Firestone was appointed as Executive Vice President, Corporate and Legal Affairs and General Counsel in January 2006. He previously served as Kraft Foods’ Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Prior to joining Kraft Foods in 2003, Mr. Firestone served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Philip Morris International, a tobacco company.

Mr. Khosla was appointed as Executive Vice President and President, Kraft Foods International in January 2007. Before joining Kraft Foods, he served as the Managing Director of the consumer and foodservice business for the New Zealand-based Fonterra Co-operative Group, a dairy company. Previously, Mr. Khosla spent 27 years with Unilever, a consumer products company, in India, London and Europe. Mr. Khosla also serves on the boards of Best Buy Co., Inc. and NIIT Ltd. and is a trustee of the Goodman Theater Company in Chicago.

Ms. May was appointed as Executive Vice President, Global Human Resources in October 2005. Prior to joining Kraft Foods, she had been Corporate Vice President, Human Resources for Baxter International Inc., a healthcare company, since February 2001. Ms. May also serves on the Board of Directors of MB Financial Inc.

Mr. McLevish was appointed as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in October 2007. Prior to that, he had been the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Ingersoll-Rand Company Limited, an industrial company, since June 2002. Mr. McLevish also serves on the Board of Directors of Kennametal Inc.

Mr. Osanloo was appointed as Executive Vice President, Strategy in April 2008. Prior to joining Kraft Foods, Mr. Osanloo served as Senior Vice President, Marketing at Harrah’s Entertainment, a provider of branded casino entertainment, from July 2005 until March 2008. Previously, Mr. Osanloo was a partner in the retail and consumer products practice at Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, from August 1996 until June 2005.

Ms. Spence was appointed as Executive Vice President, Research, Development and Quality in January 2004. Prior to her current position, Ms. Spence served as the Senior Vice President, Research and Development, Kraft Foods North America. She joined Kraft Foods in 1981. Ms. Spence also serves on the Board of Directors of International Life Sciences Institute.

Mr. Vernon joined Kraft Foods as Executive Vice President and President, Kraft Foods North America in August 2009. Prior to that, he was the Healthcare Industry Partner of Ripplewood Holdings Inc., a private equity firm, since 2006. Mr. Vernon spent 23 years with Johnson & Johnson, a pharmaceutical company, in a variety of leadership positions, most recently serving as Company Group Chairman of DePuy Inc., an orthopedics company and subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, from 2004 to 2005. Mr. Vernon also serves on the Board of Directors of Medivation, Inc.

Ms. West was appointed as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer in October 2007. Previously, she served as a Group Vice President for Kraft Foods and President of the North America Beverages Sector. Ms. West

 

9


joined Kraft Foods in 1986. Ms. West also serves on the Board of Directors of J.C. Penney Co., Inc. and is a member of the Executive Leadership Council.

Mr. Searer, 56, served as Executive Vice President and President, Kraft Foods North America from September 2006 until August 2009. Previously, Mr. Searer served as the Group Vice President and President, North America Convenient Meals Sector. Mr. Searer joined Kraft Foods in 1981. Mr. Searer also serves on the Board of Directors of Bush Brothers & Company. Mr. Searer retired from Kraft Foods in September 2009.

We adopted The Kraft Foods Code of Conduct for Compliance and Integrity, which qualifies as a code of ethics under Item 406 of Regulation S-K. The code applies to all of our employees, including our principal executive officer, principal financial officer, principal accounting officer or controller, and persons performing similar functions. Our code of ethics is available free of charge on our website at www.kraftfoodscompany.com and will be provided free of charge to any shareholder submitting a written request to: Corporate Secretary, Kraft Foods Inc., Three Lakes Drive, Northfield, IL 60093. We will disclose any waiver we grant to our principal executive officer, principal financial officer, principal accounting officer or controller under our code of ethics, or certain amendments to the code of ethics, on our website at www.kraftfoodscompany.com.

In addition, we adopted Corporate Governance Guidelines, charters for each of the Board’s five standing committees and the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics for Directors. All of these materials are available on our website at www.kraftfoodscompany.com and will be provided free of charge to any shareholder requesting a copy by writing to: Corporate Secretary, Kraft Foods Inc., Three Lakes Drive, Northfield, IL 60093. Certain of these materials may also be found in our proxy statement relating to our 2010 Annual Meeting of Shareholders.

Available Information

Our Internet address is www.kraftfoodscompany.com. Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, are available free of charge as soon as possible after we electronically file them with, or furnish them to, the SEC. You can access our filings with the SEC by visiting www.kraftfoodscompany.com. The information on our website is not, and shall not be deemed to be, a part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or incorporated into any other filings we make with the SEC.

You can also read and copy any document that we file, including this Annual Report on Form 10-K, at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. Call the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330 for information on the operation of the Public Reference Room. In addition, the SEC maintains an Internet site at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers, including Kraft Foods, that file electronically with the SEC.

Item 1A.  Risk Factors.

You should read the following risk factors carefully in connection with evaluating our business and the forward-looking information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Any of the following risks could materially adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition and the actual outcome of matters as to which forward-looking statements are made in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. While we believe we have identified and discussed below the key risk factors affecting our business, there may be additional risks and uncertainties that are not presently known or that are not currently believed to be significant that may adversely affect our business, performance or financial condition in the future.

We operate in a highly competitive industry, which may affect our profitability.

The food industry is highly competitive. We compete based on price, product innovation, product quality, brand recognition and loyalty, effectiveness of marketing, promotional activity and the ability to identify and satisfy consumer preferences.

From time to time, we may need to reduce our prices in response to competitive and customer pressures and to maintain our market share. Competition and customer pressures may also restrict our ability to increase prices in

 

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response to commodity and other input cost increases. Our results of operations will suffer if profit margins decrease as a result of a reduction in prices, increased input costs or other factors, and if we are unable to increase sales volumes to offset those profit margin decreases.

Retailers are increasingly offering retailer brands that compete with some of our products. It is important that our products provide higher value and / or quality to our consumers than less expensive alternatives. If the difference in value or quality between our products and those of retailer brands narrows, or if the perceived difference in quality narrows, then consumers may not buy our products. Furthermore, during periods of economic uncertainty, such as we continue to experience, consumers tend to purchase more retailer brands or other economy brands, which could reduce sales volumes of our products or shift our product mix to our lower margin offerings. If we are not able to maintain or improve our brand image or value proposition, it could have a material effect on our market share and our profitability.

We may also need to increase spending on marketing, advertising and new product innovation to protect existing market share or increase market share. The success of our investments is subject to risks, including uncertainties about trade and consumer acceptance. As a result, our increased expenditures may not maintain or enhance market share and could result in lower profitability.

The consolidation of retail customers, the loss of a significant customer or a material reduction in sales to a significant customer could affect our operating margins, our profitability, our net revenues and our results of operations.

Retail customers, such as supermarkets, warehouse clubs and food distributors in the U.S., the European Union and our other major markets, continue to consolidate. These consolidations have produced large, sophisticated customers with increased buying power. These larger retailers, capable of operating with reduced inventories, can resist price increases and demand lower pricing, increased promotional programs and specifically tailored products. In addition, they may use shelf space currently used for our products for their own retailer brands. The consolidation of retail customers also increases the risk that a severe adverse impact on their business operations could have a corresponding material adverse effect on us. Also, our retail customers may be affected by recent economic conditions. For example, they may not have access to funds or financing and that could cause them to delay, decrease or cancel purchases of our products, or to not pay us or to delay paying us for previous purchases.

During 2009, our five largest customers accounted for approximately 27% of our net revenues with our largest customer Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., accounting for approximately 16% of our net revenues. There can be no assurance that all significant customers will continue to purchase our products in the same quantities that they have in the past. The loss of any one of our significant customers or a material reduction in sales to a significant customer could have a material adverse effect on our net revenues and results of operations.

Increased price volatility for commodities we purchase may affect our profitability.

We are a major purchaser of commodities, including dairy, coffee, cocoa, wheat, corn products, soybean and vegetable oils, nuts, meat products, and sugar and other sweeteners. In addition, we use significant quantities of plastic, glass and cardboard to package our products, and natural gas for our factories and warehouses. Price volatility for commodities we purchase has increased due to conditions outside of our control, including recent economic conditions, currency fluctuations, availability of supply, weather, consumer demand and changes in governmental agricultural programs. Although we monitor our exposure to commodity prices as an integral part of our overall risk management program, continued volatility in the prices of commodities we purchase could increase the costs of our products and services, and our profitability could suffer.

Our product sales depend on our ability to predict, identify and interpret changes in consumer preferences and demand, and our ability to develop and offer new products rapidly enough to meet those changes.

Consumer preferences for food products change continually. Our success depends on our ability to predict, identify and interpret the tastes and dietary habits of consumers and to offer products that appeal to those preferences.

If we do not succeed in offering products that appeal to consumers, our sales and market share will decrease and our profitability could suffer. We must be able to distinguish among short-term fads, mid-term trends and long-term changes in consumer preferences. If we are unable to accurately predict which shifts in consumer preferences will be long-term, or if we fail to introduce new and improved products to satisfy those preferences, our sales could decline. In addition, because of our varied consumer base, we must offer a sufficient array of products to satisfy the broad spectrum of consumer preferences. If we fail to expand our product offerings successfully across product

 

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categories or if we do not rapidly develop products in faster growing and more profitable categories, demand for our products will decrease and our profitability could suffer.

Prolonged negative perceptions concerning the health implications of certain food products could influence consumer preferences and acceptance of some of our products and marketing programs. For example, recently, consumers have been increasingly focused on health and wellness, including weight management and sodium consumption. Although we strive to respond to consumer preferences and social expectations, we may not be successful in these efforts. Continued negative perceptions and failure to satisfy consumer preferences could decrease demand for our products and adversely affect our profitability.

As a multinational corporation, our operations are subject to additional risks.

We generated approximately 48% of our 2009 net revenues, 49% of our 2008 net revenues and 43% of our 2007 net revenues outside the U.S. The percentage of the combined company’s sales generated outside of the U.S. will increase in 2010, due to the acquisition of Cadbury and with the anticipated sale of our Frozen Pizza business. With operations in over 70 countries, our operations are subject to risks inherent in multinational operations, including:

 

   

fluctuations in currency values,

   

unpredictability of foreign currency exchange controls,

   

discriminatory fiscal policies,

   

compliance with a variety of local regulations and laws,

   

changes in tax laws and the interpretation of those laws,

   

difficulties enforcing intellectual property and contractual rights in certain jurisdictions, and

   

greater risk of uncollectible accounts and longer collection cycles.

In addition, certain jurisdictions could impose tariffs, quotas, trade barriers, and other similar restrictions on our sales. Moreover, our business operations could be interrupted and negatively affected by economic changes, geopolitical regional conflicts, terrorist activity, political unrest, civil strife, acts of war, and other economic or political uncertainties. All of these risks could result in increased costs or decreased revenues, either of which could adversely affect our profitability.

If we are unable to expand our operations in certain emerging markets, our growth rate could be negatively affected.

In 2007, we unveiled our strategies to grow our operations with increased focus on emerging markets, especially Brazil, Russia, China and other regions of Southeast Asia. The success of our operations depends in part on our ability to grow our business in these and other emerging markets. In some cases, emerging markets have greater political and economic volatility and greater vulnerability to infrastructure and labor disruptions. In addition, emerging markets are becoming more competitive as other companies grow globally and local low cost manufacturers expand their production capacities. If we are unable to increase our business in emerging markets, our market share and profitability could be adversely affected.

We may not be able to consummate proposed acquisitions or divestitures successfully or integrate acquired businesses successfully.

From time to time, we may evaluate acquisition candidates that would strategically fit our business objectives. If we are unable to complete acquisitions, or integrate successfully and develop these businesses to realize revenue growth and cost savings, including recently acquired Cadbury, our financial results could be adversely affected. In addition, from time to time, we divest businesses that do not meet our strategic objectives, or do not meet our growth or profitability targets. Our profitability may be affected by either gains or losses on the sales of, or lost operating income from, those businesses. Also, we may not be able to complete desired or proposed divestitures on terms favorable to us. Moreover, we may incur asset impairment charges related to acquisitions or divestitures which may reduce our profitability. Finally, our acquisition or divestiture activities may present financial, managerial and operational risks, including diversion of management attention from existing core businesses, difficulties integrating or separating personnel and financial and other systems, adverse effects on existing business relationships with suppliers and customers, inaccurate estimates of fair value made in the accounting for acquisitions and amortization of acquired intangible assets which would reduce future reported earnings, potential loss of customers or key employees of acquired businesses, and indemnities and potential disputes with the buyers or sellers. Any of these activities could affect our product sales, financial condition and results of operations.

 

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Business process improvement initiatives to harmonize our systems and processes may fail to operate as designed and intended.

We regularly implement business process improvement initiatives to harmonize our systems and processes and to optimize our performance. Our current business process initiatives include, but are not limited to, our reorganization of our European operations, the delivery of a SAP enterprise resource planning application, and the outsourcing of certain administrative functions. If our business process improvement initiatives fail, our ability to improve existing operations, achieve anticipated cost savings and support future growth could be delayed.

Changes in our debt ratings and the effects of volatile economic conditions on the credit market could adversely affect our borrowing costs and liquidity.

Our debt ratings depend generally on the amount of our debt and our ability to service our debt. A downgrade in our debt ratings, including as a result of incurring additional debt, would, and disruptions in the commercial paper market or the effects of other volatile economic conditions on the credit market could, reduce the amount of commercial paper that we could issue. In addition, any of these risks could raise our borrowing costs for both short-term and long-term debt offerings.

Legal claims, product recalls or other regulatory enforcement actions could affect our sales, reputation and profitability.

As a large food company that operates in a highly regulated, highly competitive environment with growing retailer power and a constantly evolving legal and regulatory framework around the world, we are subject to heightened risk of legal claims or other regulatory enforcement actions. Legal claims or regulatory enforcement actions arising out of our failure or alleged failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations could adversely affect our sales, reputation and profitability.

Further, selling products for human consumption involves inherent risks. We could be required to recall products due to product contamination, spoilage or other adulteration, product misbranding or product tampering.

We may also suffer losses if our products or operations violate applicable laws or regulations, or if our products cause injury, illness or death. In addition, our marketing could be the target of claims of false or deceptive advertising or other criticism. A significant product liability or other legal judgment or a related regulatory enforcement action against us, or a widespread product recall, may adversely affect our profitability. Moreover, even if a product liability or consumer fraud claim is unsuccessful, has no merit or is not pursued, the negative publicity surrounding assertions against our products or processes could adversely affect our sales, reputation and profitability.

Increased regulation could increase our costs and affect our profitability.

Food production and marketing are highly regulated by a variety of federal, state, local and foreign agencies. New regulations and changes to existing regulations are issued regularly. Increased governmental regulation of the food industry, such as proposed requirements designed to enhance food safety or to regulate imported ingredients, could increase our costs and adversely affect our profitability.

Volatility in the equity markets or interest rates could substantially increase our pension costs and have a negative impact on our operating results and profitability.

At the end of 2009, the projected benefit obligation of our defined benefit pension plans was $10.6 billion and assets were $8.9 billion. The difference between plan obligations and assets, or the funded status of the plans, significantly affects the net periodic benefit costs of our pension plans and the ongoing funding requirements of those plans. Among other factors, changes in interest rates, mortality rates, early retirement rates, investment returns and the market value of plan assets can (i) affect the level of plan funding; (ii) cause volatility in the net periodic pension cost; and (iii) increase our future funding requirements. In addition, if we divest certain businesses, we may be required to increase future contributions to the benefit plans and the related net periodic pension cost could increase.

We expect to make approximately $240 million in contributions to our pension plans in 2010, which is approximately $380 million less than we made in 2009. We also expect that our net pension cost will increase by approximately $50 million to approximately $440 million in 2010. As this disclosure was made as of December 31, 2009, it does not reflect the impacts of our recent acquisition and divestiture activity. Additionally, volatile economic conditions increase the risk that we may be required to make additional cash contributions to the pension plans and recognize further increases in our net pension cost beyond 2010.

 

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Item 1B.  Unresolved Staff Comments.

We have received no written comments regarding our quarterly, annual or current reports from the staff of the SEC that remain unresolved.

Item 2.  Properties.

We have 159 manufacturing and processing facilities worldwide. In North America, we have 54 facilities, and outside of North America, we have 105 facilities located in 44 countries. These manufacturing and processing facilities are located throughout the following territories:

 

   

 Territory

   Number of
     Facilities     
           
 

U.S.

   46      
 

Canada

   8      
 

Western Europe

   42      
 

Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East
and Africa

   30      
 

Latin America

   15      
 

Asia Pacific

               18      
            
 

Total

             159      
            

We own 152 and lease 7 of these manufacturing and processing facilities. It is our practice to maintain all of our plants and properties in good condition, and we believe they are suitable and adequate for our present needs.

We have publicly announced, but not yet completed, the sale or closure of two facilities in Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, one facility in Latin America and two facilities in Asia Pacific. The numbers above include these facilities.

We also have 313 distribution centers and depots worldwide. We own 38 of these distribution centers and 3 of these depots, and we lease 124 of these distribution centers and 148 of these depots. In North America, we have 298 distribution centers and depots, more than 75% of which support our direct store delivery systems. Outside North America, we have 15 distribution centers in 10 countries.

These facilities are in good condition, and we believe they have sufficient capacity to meet our distribution needs in the near future. As this disclosure was made as of December 31, 2009, it does not reflect the impacts of our recent acquisition and divestiture activity.

Item 3.  Legal Proceedings.

We routinely are involved in legal proceedings, claims, and governmental inspections or investigations (“Legal Matters”) arising in the ordinary course of our business.

Competition authorities in the European Union have opened various investigations into possible anticompetitive activity in the fast moving consumer goods (“FMCG”) sector, which includes products such as chocolate and coffee. In Germany, the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) is investigating a number of FMCG companies, including Kraft Foods. We are cooperating and in contact with the FCO. At this time, we cannot predict with certainty the course or the outcome of these investigations.

Currently, we do not believe that the ultimate costs to resolve any of the Legal Matters will have a material effect on our financial results.

Item 4.  Submission of Matters to a Vote of Security Holders.

No matters were submitted to a vote of security holders during the fourth quarter of 2009.

 

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PART II

Item 5.  Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

The principal stock exchange on which our Common Stock is listed is the NYSE. At January 29, 2010, there were approximately 80,887 holders of record of our Common Stock. As part of our February 2, 2010 acquisition of Cadbury plc, we anticipate issuing approximately 260 million additional shares of our Common Stock to the approximately 45,000 Cadbury plc shareholders of record.

Comparison of Five-Year Cumulative Total Return

The following graph compares the cumulative total return on our Common Stock with the cumulative total return of the S&P 500 Index and the performance peer group index. The graph shows total shareholder return assuming $100 was invested on December 31, 2004 and dividends were reinvested on a quarterly basis.

LOGO

 

       

Date

     Kraft Foods         S&P 500      Performance
    Peer Group    
         
   

December 2004

   $       100.00    $       100.00    $       100.00      
   

December 2005

    81.37     104.90     106.24      
   

December 2006

    106.15     121.43     127.50      
   

December 2007

    100.07     128.09     153.45      
   

December 2008

    85.51     80.77     123.55      
   

December 2009

    90.63     102.08     147.74      

The Kraft Foods performance peer group consists of the following companies considered our market competitors, or that have been selected on the basis of industry, level of management complexity, global focus or industry leadership: Cadbury plc, Campbell Soup Company, The Clorox Company, The Coca-Cola Company, Colgate-Palmolive Company, ConAgra Foods, Inc., Diageo plc, General Mills, Inc., DANONE, H.J. Heinz Company, Hershey Foods Corporation, Kellogg Company, Nestlé S.A., PepsiCo, Inc., The Procter & Gamble Company, Sara Lee Corporation, and Unilever N.V.

Portions of the information called for under Part II Item 5(a) are incorporated by reference to Note 17, Quarterly Financial Data (Unaudited), which is included within Item 8.

 

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This performance graph and other information furnished under this Part II Item 5(a) of this Form 10-K shall not be deemed to be “soliciting material” or to be “filed” with the SEC or subject to Regulation 14A or 14C, or to the liabilities of Section 18 of the Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities during the Quarter ended December 31, 2009

The following activity represents shares tendered by our employees who used shares to exercise options, and who used shares to pay the related taxes for grants of restricted and deferred stock that vested. Accordingly, these are non-cash transactions.

 

            Total Number
of Shares
  Average Price Paid
per Share
           
   

October 1-31, 2009

  38,524   $ 26.02      
   

November 1-30, 2009

  81,302   $ 26.66      
   

December 1-31, 2009

  19,185   $ 26.96      
               
   

For the Quarter Ended
December 31, 2009

              139,011   $               26.52      
               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16


Item 6.  Selected Financial Data.

Kraft Foods Inc.

Selected Financial Data—Five Year Review

(in millions of dollars, except per share and employee data)

 

     2009    2008    2007    2006    2005  

Summary of Operations:

              

Net revenues

    $ 40,386     $ 41,932     $ 35,858     $ 33,018     $ 32,779   

Cost of sales

             25,786              28,088              23,656              21,190              21,115   

Operating income

     5,524      3,843      4,176      4,158      4,373   

Operating margin

     13.7%      9.2%      11.6%      12.6%      13.3%   

Interest and other expense, net

     1,237      1,240      604      510      635   
                                    

Earnings from continuing operations
before income taxes

     4,287      2,603      3,572      3,648      3,738   

Provision for income taxes

     1,259      755      1,080      816      1,066   

Earnings / (loss) from discontinued
operations, net of income taxes

     -      1,045      232      233      (33
                                    

Net earnings

     3,028      2,893      2,724      3,065      2,639   

Noncontrolling interest

     7      9      3      5      3   
                                    

Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

     3,021      2,884      2,721      3,060      2,636   

Basic EPS attributable to Kraft Foods:

              

Continuing operations

     2.04      1.22      1.56      1.70      1.57   

Discontinued operations

     -      0.70      0.15      0.14      (0.02
                                    

Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

     2.04      1.92      1.71      1.84      1.55   

Diluted EPS attributable to Kraft Foods:

              

Continuing operations

     2.03      1.21      1.56      1.70      1.57   

Discontinued operations

     -      0.69      0.14      0.14      (0.02
                                    

Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

     2.03      1.90      1.70      1.84      1.55   

Dividends declared per share

     1.16      1.12      1.04      0.96      0.87   

Dividends declared as a % of Basic EPS

     56.9%      58.3%      60.8%      52.2%      56.1%   

Dividends declared as a % of Diluted EPS

     57.1%      58.9%      61.2%      52.2%      56.1%   

Weighted-average shares - Basic

     1,478      1,505      1,591      1,659      1,699   

Weighted-average shares - Diluted

     1,486      1,515      1,600      1,661      1,699   

Net cash provided by operating activities

     5,084      4,141      3,571      3,720      3,464   

Capital expenditures

     1,330      1,367      1,241      1,169      1,171   

Free cash flow*

     3,754      2,774      2,330      2,551      2,293   

Depreciation

     905      963      873      884      869   

Property, plant and equipment, net

     10,693      9,917      10,778      9,693      9,817   

Inventories, net

     3,775      3,881      4,238      3,436      3,272   

Total assets

     66,714      63,173      68,132      55,548      57,597   

Long-term debt

     18,024      18,589      12,902      7,081      8,475   

Total debt

     18,990      20,251      21,009      10,821      11,200   

Total long-term liabilities

     29,251      29,773      23,574      16,520      19,285   

Total Kraft Foods Shareholders' Equity

     25,876      22,295      27,407      28,536      29,574   

Total Equity

     25,972      22,356      27,445      28,562      29,600   

Book value per common share outstanding

     17.51      15.18      17.87      17.44      17.71   

Market price per Common Stock
share - high / low

     29.84-20.81      34.97-24.75      37.20-29.95      36.67-27.44      35.65-27.88   

Closing price of Common Stock at
year end

     27.18      26.85      32.63      35.70      28.17   

Price / earnings ratio at year end - Basic

     13      14      19      19      18   

Price / earnings ratio at year end - Diluted

     13      14      19      19      18   

Shares outstanding at year end

     1,478      1,469      1,534      1,636      1,670   

Number of employees

     97,000      98,000      103,000      90,000      94,000   

 

* Please see Non-GAAP Financial Measures section at the end of Item 7.

 

17


Item 7.  Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

The following discussions should be read in conjunction with the other sections of this report, including the consolidated financial statements and related notes contained in Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Description of the Company

We manufacture and market packaged food products, including snacks, beverages, cheese, convenient meals and various packaged grocery products, in approximately 160 countries.

Executive Summary

The following executive summary is intended to provide significant highlights of the discussion and analysis that follows.

 

   

Net revenues in 2009 decreased 3.7% to $40.4 billion. Net revenues in 2008 increased 16.9% to $41.9 billion.

 

   

Diluted EPS attributable to Kraft Foods increased 6.8% to $2.03 in 2009 and increased 11.8% to $1.90 in 2008. Diluted EPS attributable to Kraft Foods from continuing operations increased 67.8% to $2.03 in 2009 and decreased 22.4% to $1.21 in 2008.

 

   

Four priorities will shape our long-term strategy: focusing on growth categories; expanding our footprint in developing markets; expanding our presence in instant consumption channels; and enhancing margins.

 

   

On February 2, 2010, we had received acceptances to our offer of 71.73% of the outstanding ordinary shares of Cadbury plc. The combination of Kraft Foods and Cadbury will create a global powerhouse in snacks, confectionery and quick meals with a rich portfolio of iconic brands. As of February 15, 2010, we had received acceptances of 1,262,356,520 shares representing 91.02% of the outstanding Cadbury ordinary shares.

 

   

On February 8, 2010, we issued $9.5 billion of senior unsecured notes at a weighted-average effective rate of 5.364% and are primarily using the net proceeds ($9,379 million) to finance the Cadbury acquisition.

 

   

On January 4, 2010, we entered into an agreement to sell the assets of our North American frozen pizza business to Nestlé USA, Inc. for total consideration of $3.7 billion. The sale, which is subject to customary conditions, including regulatory clearances, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2010.

 

   

On November 30, 2009, we entered into a revolving credit agreement for a $4.5 billion three-year senior unsecured revolving credit facility. The agreement replaced our former revolving credit agreement, which was terminated upon the signing of the new agreement.

 

   

Our $5.0 billion share repurchase authority expired on March 30, 2009. Prior to the expiration, we repurchased 130.9 million shares for $4.3 billion under the program. We did not repurchase any shares in 2009.

 

   

In 2008, we completed our $3.0 billion, five-year Restructuring Program. We reversed $85 million in Restructuring Program charges during 2009, and we recorded charges of $989 million during 2008 and $459 million during 2007.

 

   

On August 4, 2008, we completed the split-off of the Post cereals business. Accordingly, the Post cereals business prior period results were reflected as discontinued operations on the consolidated statement of earnings.

 

   

On November 30, 2007, we acquired the Groupe Danone S.A. global LU biscuit business for 5.1 billion (approximately $7.6 billion) in cash.

 

18


Discussion and Analysis

Strategy

Our strategy is centered on marketing and developing leading consumer brands and pursuing growth opportunities consistent with consumer trends in order to deliver shareholder value. Our increasing investment in snacks and quick meals and our portfolio of iconic brands aligns with growing consumer interest in convenience products and premium brands. Our focus on snacks and confectionery products fits well within our strategy of growth in instant consumption channels. Four priorities will shape our long-term strategy:

 

   

focusing on growth categories to further transform into a leading snack, confectionery and quick meals company. This is being achieved through exiting lower growth and / or lower margin businesses and reinvigorating high cash flow businesses to fund growth;

   

expanding our footprint in developing markets to benefit from population growth trends, trading up by consumers and achieving the scale to establish cost-efficient infrastructure in key geographies;

   

expanding our presence in instant consumption channels in order to gain share versus grocery channels in the U.S. and European Union; and

   

enhancing margins by improving our portfolio mix and reducing costs while investing in quality.

Items Affecting Comparability of Financial Results

Acquisitions and Divestitures

Cadbury Acquisition:

On January 19, 2010, we announced the terms of our final offer for each outstanding ordinary share of Cadbury plc (“Cadbury”), including each ordinary share represented by an American Depositary Share (“Cadbury ADS”), and the Cadbury board of directors recommended that Cadbury shareholders accept the terms of the final offer. Under the terms of the offer, we agreed to pay Cadbury shareholders 500 pence in cash and 0.1874 shares of Kraft Foods Common Stock per Cadbury ordinary share validly tendered and 2,000 pence in cash and 0.7496 shares of Kraft Foods Common Stock per Cadbury ADS validly tendered. This valued each Cadbury ordinary share at 840 pence and each Cadbury ADS at £33.60 (based on the closing price of $29.58 for a share of Kraft Foods Common Stock on January 15, 2010 and an exchange rate of $1.63 per £1.00) and valued the entire issued share capital of Cadbury at £11.9 billion (approximately $19.4 billion) on January 15, 2010, the last trading day before the publication of our final offer. The combination of Kraft Foods and Cadbury will create a global powerhouse in snacks, confectionery and quick meals with a rich portfolio of iconic brands.

On February 2, 2010, all of the conditions to the offer were satisfied or validly waived, the initial offer period expired and a subsequent offer period immediately began. At that point, we had received acceptances of 71.73% of the outstanding Cadbury ordinary shares, including those represented by Cadbury ADSs. The subsequent offer period remains open until further notice and at least 14 days of notice will be given if Kraft Foods decides to close the offer. As of February 15, 2010, we had received acceptances of 1,262,356,520 shares representing 91.02% of the outstanding Cadbury ordinary shares, including those represented by Cadbury ADSs. As we have received acceptances of over 90% of Cadbury shares, we are in the process of acquiring the remaining Cadbury ordinary shares that are not tendered in the offer, including those represented by Cadbury ADSs, through a compulsory acquisition procedure under the United Kingdom Companies Act of 2006, as amended. Additionally, as a condition of the EU Commission’s approval of the Cadbury acquisition, we are required to divest confectionary operations in Poland and Romania. As part of our acquisition of Cadbury, we expensed approximately $40 million in transaction related fees in 2009 as we incurred them, and we also incurred $40 million in financing fees in 2009 related to the acquisition.

Pizza Divestiture:

On January 4, 2010, we entered into an agreement to sell the assets of our North American frozen pizza business (“Frozen Pizza”) to Nestlé USA, Inc. (“Nestlé”) for total consideration of $3.7 billion. Our Frozen Pizza business is a component of our U.S. Convenient Meals and Canada & North America Foodservice segments. The sale, which is subject to customary conditions, including regulatory clearances, includes the DiGiorno, Tombstone and Jack’s brands in the U.S., the Delissio brand in Canada and the California Pizza Kitchen trademark license. It also includes two Wisconsin manufacturing facilities (Medford and Little Chute) and the leases for the pizza depots and delivery

 

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trucks. It is estimated that approximately 3,400 of our employees will transfer with the business to Nestlé. We anticipate that the transaction will close in the first quarter of 2010.

At December 31, 2009, the Frozen Pizza business did not meet the criteria to be considered held-for-sale. Beginning in the first quarter of 2010, the results of the Frozen Pizza business will be presented as a discontinued operation in our consolidated financial statements and prior periods will be restated in a consistent manner. The following reflects the summary results for the Frozen Pizza business that will be treated as a discontinued operation going forward:

 

             For the Years Ended December 31,      
                 2009             2008             2007          
                   (in millions)            
   

Net revenues

   $       1,632      $       1,440      $       1,278     
                              
   

Earnings from operations before
income taxes

     341        267        237     
   

Provision for income taxes

     (123     (97     (87  
                              
   

Net earnings from operations of
the Frozen Pizza business

   $ 218      $ 170      $ 150     
                              

 

Earnings from operations before income taxes as presented exclude stranded overheads of $108 million in 2009, $112 million in 2008 and $111 million in 2007.

 

Post Cereals Split-off:

On August 4, 2008, we completed the split-off of the Post cereals business into Ralcorp Holdings, Inc. (“Ralcorp”), after an exchange with our shareholders. Accordingly, the Post cereals business prior period results were reflected as discontinued operations on the consolidated statement of earnings. The exchange was expected to be tax-free to participating shareholders for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

 

In this split-off transaction, approximately 46.1 million shares of Kraft Foods Common Stock were tendered for $1,644 million. Our shareholders had the option to exchange some or all of their shares of Kraft Foods Common Stock and receive shares of common stock of Cable Holdco, Inc. (“Cable Holdco”). Cable Holdco was our wholly owned subsidiary that owned certain assets and liabilities of the Post cereals business. In exchange for the contribution of the Post cereals business, Cable Holdco issued approximately $665 million in debt securities, issued shares of its common stock and assumed a $300 million credit facility. Upon closing, we used the cash equivalent net proceeds, approximately $960 million, to repay debt.

 

The Post cereals business included such brands as Honey Bunches of Oats, Pebbles, Shredded Wheat, Selects, Grape-Nuts and Honeycomb. Under Kraft Foods, the brands in this transaction were distributed primarily in North America. In addition to the Post brands, the transaction included four manufacturing facilities, certain manufacturing equipment and approximately 1,230 employees who joined Ralcorp as part of the transaction.

 

Pursuant to the Post cereals business Transition Services Agreement, we provided certain sales, co-manufacturing, distribution, information technology, and accounting and finance services to Ralcorp through 2009.

 

Summary results of operations for the Post cereals business through August 4, 2008, were as follows:

 

             For the Years Ended
December 31,
           
                     2008                     2007                    
             (in millions)            
   

Net revenues

   $ 666      $       1,107       
                        
   

Earnings before income taxes

     189        369       
   

Provision for income taxes

     (70     (137    
   

Gain on discontinued operations, net of
income taxes

     926        -       
                        
   

Earnings and gain from discontinued
operations, net of income taxes

   $       1,045      $ 232       
                        

 

20


The following assets of the Post cereals business were included in the split-off (in millions):

 

 

Inventories, net

   $ 94       
 

Property, plant and equipment, net

     425       
 

Goodwill

     1,234       
 

Other assets

     11       
 

Other liabilities

     (3    
              
 

Distributed assets of the Post cereals
business

   $         1,761       
              

LU Biscuit Acquisition:

On November 30, 2007, we acquired the Groupe Danone S.A. global LU biscuit business (“LU Biscuit”) for 5.1 billion (approximately $7.6 billion) in cash. The acquisition included 32 manufacturing facilities and approximately 14,000 employees. We used borrowings of 5.1 billion to finance this acquisition. Interest incurred on these borrowings was the primary driver of the $533 million increase in interest expense from 2007 to 2008. LU Biscuit reports results from operations on a one month lag; accordingly, there was no effect on our 2007 operating results. On a proforma basis, LU Biscuit would have contributed net revenues of $2.8 billion during 2007, and LU Biscuit’s contribution to net earnings would have been insignificant to Kraft Foods.

Other Divestitures:

In 2009, we received $41 million in net proceeds and recorded pre-tax losses of $6 million on the divestitures of our Balance bar operations in the U.S., a juice operation in Brazil and a plant in Spain. We recorded after-tax gains of $58 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, on these divestitures, primarily due to the differing book and tax bases of our Balance bar operations.

In 2008, we received $153 million in net proceeds, and recorded pre-tax losses of $92 million on divestitures, primarily related to a Nordic and Baltic snacks operation and four operations in Spain. We recorded after-tax losses of $64 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, on these divestitures.

Included in the 2008 divestitures were the following, which were a condition of the EU Commission’s approval of our LU Biscuit acquisition:

 

   

We divested a biscuit operation in Spain. From this divestiture, we received $86 million in net proceeds and recorded pre-tax losses of $74 million.

   

We divested another biscuit operation in Spain and a trademark in Hungary that we had previously acquired as part of the LU Biscuit acquisition. As such, the impacts of these divestitures were reflected as adjustments to the purchase price allocations.

In 2007, we received $216 million in net proceeds and recorded pre-tax gains of $14 million on the divestitures of our hot cereal assets and trademarks, our sugar confectionery assets in Romania and related trademarks and our flavored water and juice brand assets and related trademarks, including Veryfine and Fruit2O. We recorded an after-tax loss of $5 million on these divestitures to reflect the differing book and tax bases of our hot cereal assets and trademarks divestiture.

The aggregate operating results of the divestitures discussed above, other than the divestiture of the Post cereals business, were not material to our financial statements in any of the periods presented. Refer to Note 16, Segment Reporting, for details of the gains and losses on divestitures by segment. The net impacts to segment operating income from gains and losses on divestitures, along with resulting asset impairment charges, are summarized in the table with the Asset Impairment Charges section below.

Asset Impairment Charges

In 2009, we recorded aggregate asset impairment charges of $21 million, or $0.01 per diluted share. During our 2009 review of goodwill and non-amortizable intangible assets, we recorded a $12 million charge for the impairment of intangible assets in the Netherlands. In addition, during 2009, we recorded a $9 million asset impairment charge to write off an investment in Norway. We recorded the aggregate asset impairment charges within asset impairment and exit costs.

 

21


In 2008, we recorded aggregate asset impairment charges of $140 million, or $0.07 per diluted share. During our 2008 review of goodwill and non-amortizable intangible assets, we recorded a $44 million charge for the impairment of intangible assets in the Netherlands, France and Puerto Rico. In addition, in December 2008, we reached a preliminary agreement to divest a juice operation in Brazil and reached an agreement to sell a cheese plant in Australia. In anticipation of divesting the juice operation in Brazil, we recorded an asset impairment charge of $13 million in the fourth quarter of 2008. The charge primarily included the write-off of associated intangible assets of $8 million and property, plant and equipment of $4 million. In anticipation of selling the cheese plant in Australia, we recorded an asset impairment charge of $28 million to property, plant and equipment in the fourth quarter of 2008. Additionally, in 2008, we divested a Nordic and Baltic snacks operation, and incurred an asset impairment charge of $55 million in connection with the divestiture. This charge primarily included the write-off of associated goodwill of $34 million and property, plant and equipment of $16 million. We recorded the aggregate asset impairment charges within asset impairment and exit costs.

No impairments resulted from our 2007 annual review of goodwill and non-amortizable intangible assets. Additionally, in 2007, we divested our flavored water and juice brand assets and related trademarks and incurred an asset impairment charge of $120 million, or $0.03 per diluted share, in recognition of the divestiture. The charge primarily included the write-off of associated intangible assets of $70 million and property, plant and equipment of $47 million and was recorded within asset impairment and exit costs.

The net impacts to segment operating income from gains and losses on divestitures and the related asset impairment charges recorded when these divestitures were considered held-for-sale are summarized in the table below.

 

         For the Years Ended December 31,      
                 2009                     2008                     2007              
               (in millions)            
 

Gains / (losses) & asset impairment
charges on divestitures, net:

        
 

Kraft Foods North America:

        
 

U.S. Beverages

   $ -      $ (1   $ (126  
 

U.S. Cheese

     -        -        -     
 

U.S. Convenient Meals

     -        -        -     
 

U.S. Grocery

     -        -        -     
 

U.S. Snacks

                 11                        -                     12     
 

Canada & N.A. Foodservice

     -        -        -     
 

Kraft Foods Europe (1)

     (17     (146     -     
 

Kraft Foods Developing Markets

     -        (13     8     
                            
 

Total net impact from divestitures

   $ (6   $ (160   $ (106  
                            
 

 

(1)    This segment was formerly known as European Union.

Cost Savings Initiatives

We incurred costs associated with our Cost Savings Initiatives of $318 million in 2009. These charges were recorded in operations, primarily within the segment operating income of Kraft Foods Europe with the remainder spread across all other segments. The Kraft Foods Europe charges were largely a result of the reorganization of our European operations. Cost Savings Initiatives include exit, disposal and implementation costs. Even though implementation costs were directly attributable to exit and disposal costs, they did not qualify for special accounting treatment as exit or disposal activities. In 2009, our Cost Savings Initiatives primarily included severance charges for benefits received by terminated employees, associated benefit plan costs and other related activities.

2004-2008 Restructuring Program

In 2008, we completed our five-year restructuring program (the “Restructuring Program”). The objectives of this program were to leverage our global scale, realign and lower our cost structure, and optimize capacity. As part of the Restructuring Program, we:

 

   

incurred $3.0 billion in pre-tax charges reflecting asset disposals, severance and implementation costs;

   

announced the closure of 35 facilities and announced the elimination of approximately 18,600 positions;

 

22


   

will use cash to pay for $2.0 billion of the $3.0 billion in charges; and

   

anticipate reaching cumulative annualized savings of $1.4 billion for the total program.

In 2009, we reversed $85 million of previously accrued Restructuring Program charges (resulting in a favorable impact to diluted EPS of $0.04). Those reversals related to the following:

 

   

We sold a plant in Spain that we previously announced we would close under our Restructuring Program. Accordingly, we reversed $35 million in Restructuring Program charges, primarily related to severance, and recorded a $17 million loss on the divestiture of the plant in 2009. The reversal occurred in our Kraft Foods Europe segment.

   

We also reversed $50 million in Restructuring Program charges, primarily due to planned position eliminations that did not occur. These were primarily the result of redeployment and natural attrition. The majority of these reversals occurred in our Kraft Foods Europe segment, with the remainder spread across all other segments.

We incurred charges from continuing operations under the Restructuring Program of $989 million in 2008, or $0.45 per diluted share, and $447 million in 2007, or $0.19 per diluted share. Since the inception of the Restructuring Program, we have paid cash of $1.7 billion of the $2.0 billion in expected cash payments, including $176 million paid in 2009. At December 31, 2009, we had an accrual of $270 million, and we had eliminated approximately 17,300 positions under the Restructuring Program.

In 2008, we implemented a new operating structure built on three core elements: business units, shared services that leverage the scale of our global portfolio, and a streamlined corporate staff. Within the new structure, business units now have full P&L accountability and are staffed accordingly. This also ensures that we are putting our resources closer to where we make decisions that affect our consumers and customers. Our corporate and shared service functions streamlined their organizations to focus on core activities that can more efficiently support the goals of the business units. The intent was to simplify, streamline and increase accountability, with the ultimate goal of generating reliable growth for Kraft Foods. In total, we eliminated approximately 1,400 positions as we streamlined our headquarter functions.

Under the Restructuring Program, we recorded asset impairment and exit costs from continuing operations of $884 million in 2008 and $320 million in 2007. We recorded implementation costs from continuing operations of $105 million in 2008 and $127 million in 2007. Implementation costs are directly attributable to exit and disposal costs; however, they do not qualify for treatment as exit or disposal costs under guidance related to accounting for costs associated with exit or disposal activities. These costs primarily include the discontinuance of certain product lines, incremental expenses related to the closure of facilities and the reorganization of our European operations discussed below. Management believes the disclosure of implementation charges provides readers of our financial statements greater transparency to the total costs of our Restructuring Program. Refer to Note 6, Restructuring Costs, for details of our Restructuring Program by segment.

Provision for Income Taxes

Our effective tax rate was 29.4% in 2009, 29.0% in 2008 and 30.2% in 2007. Our 2009 effective tax included net tax benefits of $225 million, primarily due to an agreement we reached with the IRS on specific matters related to years 2000 through 2003, settlements with various foreign and state tax authorities, the expiration of the statutes of limitations in various jurisdictions and the divestiture of our Balance bar operations in the U.S.

Our 2008 effective tax rate included net tax benefits of $222 million from discrete tax events. Of the total net tax benefits, approximately $50 million related to fourth quarter corrections of state, federal and foreign tax liabilities and a third quarter reconciliation of our inventory of deferred tax items that resulted in a write-down of our net deferred tax liabilities. The remaining net tax benefits primarily related to the resolution of various tax audits and the expiration of statutes of limitations in various jurisdictions. Other discrete tax benefits included the impact from divestitures of a Nordic and Baltic snacks operation and several operations in Spain and the tax benefit from impairment charges taken in 2008. In addition, the 2008 tax rate benefited from foreign earnings taxed below the U.S. federal statutory tax rate and from the expected tax benefit of 2008 restructuring expenses. These benefits were only partially offset by state tax expense and certain foreign tax costs.

 

23


Our 2007 effective tax rate included net tax benefits of $184 million, primarily including the effects of dividend repatriation benefits, foreign joint venture earnings and the effect on foreign deferred taxes from lower foreign tax rates enacted in 2007. The 2007 tax rate also benefited from foreign earnings taxed below the U.S. federal statutory tax rate, an increased domestic manufacturing deduction, and the divestiture of our flavored water and juice brand assets and related trademarks. These benefits were partially offset by state tax expense, tax costs associated with the divestiture of our hot cereal assets and trademarks and interest income from Altria related to the transfer of our federal tax contingencies.

As a result of our spin-off from Altria Group, Inc. (“Altria”), Altria transferred our federal tax contingencies to our balance sheet and related interest income of $77 million, or $0.03 per diluted share, in 2007. Following our spin-off from Altria, we no longer are a member of the Altria consolidated tax return group, and we file our own federal consolidated income tax returns.

Consolidated Results of Operations

The following discussion compares our consolidated results of operations for 2009 with 2008, and for 2008 with 2007.

Many factors have an impact on the timing of sales to our customers. These factors include, among others, the timing of holidays and other annual or special events, seasonality, significant weather conditions, timing of our own or customer incentive programs and pricing actions, customer inventory programs and general economic conditions. Our domestic operating subsidiaries report year-end results as of the last Saturday of the year, and our international operating subsidiaries generally report year-end results two weeks prior to the last Saturday of the year.

2009 compared with 2008

    For the Years Ended
December 31,
                 
    2009     2008     $ change     % change      
    (in millions, except per
share data)
                 

Net revenues

  $    40,386         $    41,932      $     (1,546   (3.7%  

Operating income

    5,524        3,843        1,681               43.7%     

Earnings from continuing operations

    3,028        1,848        1,180      63.9%     

Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

    3,021        2,884        137      4.8%     

Diluted earnings per share from continuing
operations attributable to Kraft Foods

    2.03        1.21        0.82      67.8%     

Diluted earnings per share attributable
to Kraft Foods

    2.03        1.90        0.13      6.8%     

 

Net Revenues - Net revenues decreased $1,546 million (3.7%) to $40,386 million in 2009, and organic net revenues increased $633 million (1.5%) to $42,210 million as follows. Please see Non-GAAP Financial Measures section at the end of this Item.

 

Change in net revenues (by percentage point)

         

Higher net pricing

      1.9pp         

Unfavorable volume/mix

      (0.2)pp         

2008 favorable resolution of a Brazilian value
added tax claim

      (0.2)pp         
               

Total change in organic net revenues

      1.5%         

Unfavorable foreign currency

      (4.5)pp         

Impact of divestitures

      (0.7)pp         
               

Total change in net revenues

      (3.7)%         
               

 

24


The decrease in net revenues was partially offset by higher input cost-driven pricing. The unfavorable volume/mix impact on net revenues was driven by volume declines across all reportable segments, except U.S. Beverages and U.S. Convenient Meals, in part due to the discontinuation of less profitable product lines. Unfavorable foreign currency decreased net revenues by $1,897 million, due primarily to the strength of the U.S. dollar against the euro, Russian ruble, Canadian dollar, Ukrainian hryvnia, British pound, Brazilian real and Polish zloty. The absence of the 2008 favorable resolution of a Brazilian value added tax claim and the impact of divestitures also had an unfavorable impact on net revenues.

Operating Income - Operating income increased $1,681 million (43.7%) to $5,524 million in 2009, due to the following (in millions):

 

         Operating
Income
    Change     
         (in millions)     (percentage point)     
 

2008 Operating Income

   $                3,843        
 

Change in operating income

       
 

Higher pricing

     781      15.0pp   
 

Favorable volume/mix

     195      3.8pp   
 

Lower input costs

     97     1.7pp   
 

Lower Restructuring Program costs

     1,074      30.2pp   
 

Change in unrealized gains on hedging activities

     408      7.9pp   
 

Lower losses on divestitures, net

     86      3.3pp   
 

Lower asset impairment charges

     119      2.9pp   
 

Lower charges from certain legal matters

     22      0.7pp   
 

2008 favorable resolution of Brazilian value added tax claim

     (67   (1.3)pp   
 

Higher marketing, administration and research costs

     (694                (13.4)pp   
 

Unfavorable foreign currency

     (322   (6.3)pp   
 

Other, net

     (18   (0.8)pp   
                 
 

Total change in operating income

     1,681          43.7%   
                 
 

2009 Operating Income

   $ 5,524        
               

Higher pricing reflected the carryover impact of 2008 pricing actions, as we recovered some of our cumulative cost increases from prior years. The favorable volume/mix was driven by strong contributions from Kraft Foods Developing Markets and U.S. Convenient Meals. The decrease in input costs was driven by lower raw material costs, partially offset by higher manufacturing costs. During 2009, we reversed $85 million in Restructuring Program charges recorded in the prior year, versus the $989 million in Restructuring Program charges recognized in 2008. We recognized gains of $203 million on the change in unrealized hedging positions in 2009, versus losses of $205 million in 2008. We recorded $6 million of net losses on divestitures in 2009, versus $92 million of net losses on divestitures in 2008. We recorded asset impairment charges of $21 million related to intangible assets in the Netherlands and to write off an investment in Norway in 2009, versus asset impairment charges of $140 million related to certain international intangible assets, the divestiture of our Nordic and Baltic snacks operation, a juice operation in Brazil and a cheese plant in Australia that were recorded in 2008. We had $22 million of lower charges from certain legal matters. During 2009, we recorded an additional $50 million of charges for legal matters related to certain of our European operations (see Part I Item 3. Legal Proceedings for a description of these matters). In 2008, we recorded $72 million in charges for legal matters related to certain of our U.S. and European operations, including U.S. coffee operations. Total marketing, administration and research costs, as recorded in the consolidated statement of earnings, increased $246 million from 2008. Excluding the impacts of divestitures, foreign currency, charges for certain legal matters and prior year Restructuring Program costs it increased $694 million over 2008, primarily due to further investments in our brands, including spending on Cost Savings Initiatives, and higher marketing support costs. In addition, unfavorable foreign currency decreased operating income by $322 million, due primarily to the strength of the U.S. dollar against the British pound, euro, Canadian dollar, Russian ruble, Ukrainian hryvnia, Korean won, Brazilian real, and Polish zloty.

As a result of these changes, operating margin also increased from 9.2% in 2008 to 13.7% in 2009.

 

25


Net Earnings and Earnings per Share Attributable to Kraft Foods - Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods of $3,021 million increased by $137 million (4.8%) in 2009. Diluted EPS from continuing operations attributable to Kraft Foods were $2.03 in 2009, up 67.8% from $1.21 in 2008. Diluted EPS attributable to Kraft Foods were $2.03 in 2009, up 6.8% from $1.90 in 2008, due to the following:

 

                       Net Earnings     Diluted EPS      
                       (in millions, except
per share data)
     
   

2008 Net Earnings Attributable to Kraft Foods

   $ 2,884      $ 1.90     
   

Change in net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

      
   

Increases in operations

       0.14     
   

Lower charges from certain legal matters

       0.01     
   

Lower Restructuring Program costs

       0.49     
   

Change in unrealized gains on hedging activities

       0.18     
   

Lower asset impairment charges

       0.06     
   

Lower losses on divestitures, net

       0.08     
   

2008 favorable resolution of Brazilian value added tax claim

       (0.03  
   

Unfavorable foreign currency

       (0.14  
   

Other changes in taxes, including tax settlements

       (0.01  
   

Fewer shares outstanding

       0.04     
                
   

Change in net earnings from continuing operations

       0.82     
   

2008 gain on the split-off of our Post cereals business

       (0.61  
   

Decreased earnings from discontinued operations

       (0.08  
                
   

Change in net earnings from discontinued operations

       (0.69  
                
   

Total change in net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

     137        0.13     
                            
   

2009 Net Earnings Attributable to Kraft Foods

   $ 3,021      $ 2.03     
                      

 

2008 compared with 2007

             For the Years Ended
December 31,
                
             2008    2007    $ change     % change      
             (in millions, except per
share data)
                
   

Net revenues

   $       41,932    $       35,858    $         6,074               16.9%     
   

Operating income

     3,843      4,176      (333     (8.0%  
   

Earnings from continuing operations

     1,848      2,492      (644     (25.8%  
   

Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

     2,884      2,721      163        6.0%     
   

Diluted earnings per share from continuing
operations attributable to Kraft Foods

     1.21      1.56      (0.35     (22.4%  
   

Diluted earnings per share attributable
to Kraft Foods

     1.90      1.70      0.20        11.8%     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

26


Net Revenues - Net revenues increased $6,074 million (16.9%) to $41,932 million in 2008, and organic net revenues increased $2,394 million (6.8%) to $37,818 million as follows. Please see Non-GAAP Financial Measures section at the end of this Item.

 

   

Change in net revenues (by percentage point)

            
   

Higher net pricing

     7.4pp             
   

2008 favorable resolution of a Brazilian value added tax claim

     0.2pp             
   

Unfavorable volume/mix

     (0.8)pp             
                      
   

Total change in organic net revenues

     6.8%             
   

2007 LU Biscuit acquisition

     8.9pp             
   

Favorable foreign currency

     2.0pp             
   

Impact of divestitures

     (0.8)pp             
                      
   

Total change in net revenues

     16.9%             
                      

 

Net revenues increased as we increased pricing to offset higher input costs and investments in our brands. Unfavorable volume/mix was driven by lower base business shipments, partially offset by improved product mix primarily in Kraft Foods Europe and Kraft Foods Developing Markets. Higher base business shipments in our Canada & N.A. Foodservice, Kraft Foods Developing Markets and U.S. Convenient Meals segments were more than offset by declines in our remaining business segments. Our LU Biscuit acquisition was the largest increase to net revenues as no 2007 revenues were recorded due to the year-end acquisition timing. Foreign currency increased net revenues by $711 million, due primarily to the strength of the euro, Brazilian real, Polish zloty and Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar.

 

Operating Income - Operating income declined $333 million (8.0%) to $3,843 million in 2008, due to the following (in millions):

 

             Operating Income     Change                
             (in millions)     (percentage point)                
   

2007 Operating Income

   $ 4,176             
   

Change in operating income

            
   

Higher pricing

                   2,633                    55.9pp        
   

Higher input costs

     (2,059   (43.7)pp        
   

Unfavorable volume/mix

     (128   (2.8)pp        
   

Increased operating income from our LU Biscuit acquisition

     438      9.3pp        
   

Integration costs associated with our LU Biscuit acquisition

     (78   (1.6)pp        
   

Higher Restructuring Program costs

     (542   (12.3)pp        
   

Higher marketing, administration and research costs

     (280   (5.9)pp        
   

Change in unrealized losses on hedging activities

     (221   (4.7)pp        
   

Higher losses on divestitures, net

     (106   (2.6)pp        
   

Charges from certain legal matters

     (72   (1.6)pp        
   

Higher asset impairment charges

     (20   (0.2)pp        
   

2008 favorable resolution of a Brazilian value added tax claim

     67      1.4pp        
   

Favorable foreign currency

     61                         1.3pp        
   

Other, net

     (26   (0.5)pp        
                        
   

Total change in operating income

     (333   (8.0)%        
                        
   

2008 Operating Income

   $                 3,843             
                      

Higher pricing outpaced our input cost increases during the year, as we recovered cumulative cost increases from prior years. The increase in input costs was primarily related to higher raw material costs. The unfavorable volume/mix was driven by declines across most segments within Kraft Foods North America, partially offset by volume/mix gains in Kraft Foods Developing Markets and Kraft Foods Europe. The increase in unrealized losses on hedging activities primarily related to energy derivatives, including heating oil (used primarily to hedge transportation costs) and natural gas contracts. Our LU Biscuit acquisition, net of integration costs, increased operating income by $360 million. Total marketing, administration and research costs, as recorded in the consolidated statement of earnings, increased $1,275 million over the prior year. Excluding the impacts of acquisitions, divestitures, foreign currency and

 

27


charges for legal matters it increased $280 million over the prior year. The net impact of losses on divestitures and asset impairments had an unfavorable impact of $126 million on operating income versus the prior year. The charges for legal matters related to certain of our U.S. and European operations, including U.S. coffee operations. Charges for legal matters were recorded within marketing, administration and research costs. In addition, foreign currency increased operating income by $61 million, due primarily to the strength of the Brazilian real, euro, Polish zloty and Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar.

As a result of these changes, operating margin also decreased from 11.6% in 2007 to 9.2% in 2008.

Net Earnings and Earnings per Share Attributable to Kraft Foods - Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods of $2,884 million increased by $163 million (6.0%) in 2008. Diluted EPS from continuing operations attributable to Kraft Foods were $1.21 in 2008, down 22.4% from $1.56 in 2007. Diluted EPS attributable to Kraft Foods were $1.90, up 11.8% from $1.70 in 2007, due to the following:

 

                    Net Earnings                Diluted EPS                           
              (in millions, except
per share data)
                    
    

2007 Net Earnings Attributable to Kraft Foods

   $           2,721    $           1.70              
    

Change in net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

                
    

Increases in operations

        0.03              
    

Impact to operations from our LU Biscuit acquisition

        0.15              
    

Higher Restructuring Program costs

        (0.26           
    

Change in unrealized losses on hedging activities

        (0.09           
    

Higher asset impairment charges

        (0.04           
    

Higher losses on divestitures, net

        (0.04           
    

Charges from certain legal matters

        (0.03           
    

2008 favorable resolution of a Brazilian value added tax claim

        0.03              
    

Higher interest and other expense, net

        (0.23           
    

2007 interest from Altria tax reserve

        (0.03           
    

Favorable foreign currency

        0.02              
    

Deferred tax reconciliation

        0.01              
    

Other changes in taxes

        0.03              
    

Fewer shares outstanding

        0.10              
                           
    

Change in net earnings from continuing operations

        (0.35           
    

2008 gain on the split-off of our Post cereals business

        0.61              
    

Decreased earnings from discontinued operations

        (0.06           
                           
    

Change in net earnings from discontinued operations

        0.55              
                           
    

Total change in net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

     163      0.20              
                               
    

2008 Net Earnings Attributable to Kraft Foods

   $ 2,884    $ 1.90              
                               

Results of Operations by Business Segment

We manage and report operating results through three geographic units, Kraft Foods North America, Kraft Foods Europe and Kraft Foods Developing Markets. We manage the operations of Kraft Foods North America and Kraft Foods Europe by product category, and we manage the operations of Kraft Foods Developing Markets by location. Our reportable segments are U.S. Beverages, U.S. Cheese, U.S. Convenient Meals, U.S. Grocery, U.S. Snacks, Canada & N.A. Foodservice, Kraft Foods Europe (formerly known as European Union) and Kraft Foods Developing Markets.

Effective January 2009, we began implementing changes to our operating structure based on our Organizing For Growth initiative and the Kraft Foods Europe Reorganization. In line with our strategies, we are reorganizing our European operations to function on a pan-European centralized category management and value chain model, and we changed how we work in Europe in two key ways:

 

   

We transitioned our European Biscuit, Chocolate, Coffee and Cheese categories to fully integrated business units, further strengthening our focus on these core categories. To ensure decisions are made

 

28


 

faster and closer to our customers and consumers, each category is fully accountable for its financial results, including marketing, manufacturing and R&D. Category leadership, based in Zurich, Switzerland, reports to the Kraft Foods Europe President. These business units now comprise the Kraft Foods Europe segment.

   

We aligned the reporting of our Central Europe operations into our Kraft Foods Developing Markets segment to help build critical scale in these countries. We operate a country-led model in these markets.

The following discussion compares our results of operations for each of our reportable segments for 2009 with 2008, and for 2008 with 2007.

 

         For the Years Ended December 31,          
         2009     2008     2007          
         (in millions)          
 

Net revenues:

          
 

Kraft Foods North America:

          
 

U.S. Beverages

   $ 3,057      $ 3,001      $ 2,990       
 

U.S. Cheese

     3,605        4,007        3,745       
 

U.S. Convenient Meals

     4,496        4,240        3,905       
 

U.S. Grocery

     3,453        3,389        3,277       
 

U.S. Snacks

     4,964        5,025        4,879       
 

Canada & N.A. Foodservice

     4,087        4,294        4,080       
 

Kraft Foods Europe

     8,768        9,728        7,007       
 

Kraft Foods Developing Markets

     7,956        8,248        5,975       
                              
 

Net revenues

   $ 40,386      $ 41,932      $ 35,858       
                              
         For the Years Ended December 31,          
         2009     2008     2007          
         (in millions)          
 

Operating income:

          
 

Kraft Foods North America:

          
 

U.S. Beverages

   $           511      $           381      $           346       
 

U.S. Cheese

     667        563        487       
 

U.S. Convenient Meals

     510        339        319       
 

U.S. Grocery

     1,146        1,009        1,022       
 

U.S. Snacks

     723        638        716       
 

Canada & N.A. Foodservice

     527        448        443       
 

Kraft Foods Europe

     785        182        455       
 

Kraft Foods Developing Markets

     936        815        588       
 

Unrealized gains / (losses) on
hedging activities

     203        (205     16       
 

Certain U.S. pension plan costs

     (165     -        -       
 

General corporate expenses

     (293     (304     (203    
 

Amortization of intangibles

     (26     (23     (13    
                              
 

Operating income

   $ 5,524      $ 3,843      $ 4,176       
                              

As discussed in Note 16, Segment Reporting, management uses segment operating income to evaluate segment performance and allocate resources. We believe it is appropriate to disclose this measure to help investors analyze segment performance and trends. Segment operating income excludes unrealized gains and losses on hedging activities (which are a component of cost of sales), certain components of our U.S. pension plan cost (which is a component of cost of sales and marketing, administration and research costs), general corporate expenses (which are a component of marketing, administration and research costs) and amortization of intangibles for all periods presented. In 2009, we began excluding certain components of our U.S. pension plan cost from segment operating income because we centrally manage pension plan funding decisions and the determination of discount rate, expected rate of return on plan assets and other actuarial assumptions. Therefore, we allocate only the service cost component of our U.S. pension plan expense to segment operating income. We exclude the unrealized gains and losses on hedging activities from segment operating income in order to provide better transparency of our segment operating results. Once realized, the gains and losses on hedging activities are recorded within segment operating results.

 

29


In 2009, unrealized gains on hedging activities of $203 million primarily resulted from the 2008 unrealized losses on energy derivatives becoming realized in 2009. In 2008, unrealized losses on hedging activities of $205 million were primarily related to energy derivatives, including heating oil (used primarily to hedge transportation costs) and natural gas contracts. In 2009, general corporate expenses included $50 million of charges for legal matters related to certain of our European operations (see Part I Item 3. Legal Proceedings for a description of these matters). In 2008, we recorded $72 million in charges for legal matters related to certain of our U.S. and European operations, including U.S. coffee operations and represented the primary reason general corporate expenses increased $101 million in 2008.

We incurred costs associated with our Cost Savings Initiatives of $318 million in 2009. These charges were recorded in operations, primarily within the segment operating income of Kraft Foods Europe with the remainder spread across all other segments. In 2009, we also reversed $85 million of Restructuring Program costs, with the majority relating to our Kraft Foods Europe segment while the remainder was spread across all other segments. We incurred Restructuring Program costs of $989 million in 2008 and $459 million in 2007. Refer to Note 6, Restructuring Costs, for a breakout of the 2008 and 2007 charges by segment. We also incurred asset impairment charges of $21 million in 2009 related to our Kraft Foods Europe segment, $140 million in 2008 related to our Kraft Foods Europe and Kraft Foods Developing Markets segments, and $120 million in 2007 related to our U.S. Beverages segment. Refer to Note 5, Goodwill and Intangible Assets, for further details of these charges.

U.S. Beverages

         For the Years Ended
December 31,
                     
         2009    2008    $ change    % change            
         (in millions)                      
 

Net revenues

   $           3,057    $           3,001    $                56                1.9%      
 

Segment operating income

     511      381      130    34.1%      
         For the Years Ended
December 31,
                     
         2008    2007    $ change    % change            
         (in millions)                      
 

Net revenues

   $ 3,001    $ 2,990    $ 11    0.4%      
 

Segment operating income

     381      346      35    10.1%      

2009 compared with 2008:

Net revenues increased $56 million (1.9%), due to favorable volume/mix (1.3 pp) and higher net pricing (0.6 pp). Favorable volume/mix was driven by higher shipments in ready-to-drink and powdered beverages. Ready-to-drink beverages grew from successful quality and marketing investments in Capri Sun, partially offset by the discontinuation of less profitable ready-to-drink product lines. Powdered beverages volume increased primarily due to strong gains in Kool-Aid and Tang. Coffee volume declined as gains in Maxwell House, Starbucks and Tassimo were more than offset by declines in Gevalia. These favorable factors were partially offset by unfavorable mix driven by the higher ready-to-drink volume. Higher net pricing was primarily related to ready-to-drink beverages, partially offset by lower input cost-driven pricing in coffee.

Segment operating income increased $130 million (34.1%), due primarily to lower costs due to the completion of the Restructuring Program, lower raw material costs, higher net pricing, favorable volume/mix (higher shipments, net of unfavorable product mix), lower manufacturing costs and lower marketing, administration and research costs, partially offset by higher marketing support costs.

2008 compared with 2007:

Net revenues increased $11 million (0.4%), due to higher net pricing (4.9 pp), partially offset by the impact of divestitures (2.4 pp) and unfavorable volume/mix (2.1 pp). Higher net pricing reflected input cost-driven pricing in coffee and lower promotional spending in ready-to-drink beverages. Unfavorable volume/mix was driven by lower shipments, partially offset by improved product mix due to growth in Tassimo. Lower shipments were driven by declines in ready-to-drink beverages, primarily Capri Sun, partially offset by gains in powdered beverages, primarily Country Time and Kool-Aid, and Maxwell House mainstream coffee.

 

30


Segment operating income increased $35 million (10.1%), due primarily to higher net pricing, a 2007 asset impairment charge related to our flavored water and juice brand assets and related trademarks, the impact of divestitures and lower manufacturing costs. These favorable factors were partially offset by higher raw material costs, higher Restructuring Program costs, unfavorable volume/mix and higher marketing, administration and research costs.

U.S. Cheese

        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2009     2008     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $ 3,605      $ 4,007      $ (402      (10.0%      
 

Segment operating income

    667        563        104          18.5%         
        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2008     2007     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $ 4,007      $ 3,745      $ 262           7.0%         
 

Segment operating income

    563        487        76          15.6%         

 

2009 compared with 2008:

Net revenues decreased $402 million (10.0%), due to lower net pricing (8.8 pp) and unfavorable volume/mix (1.2 pp). Lower net pricing was due to lower input cost-driven pricing combined with increases in promotional spending. Net revenues also declined due to lower shipments, primarily in cultured and natural cheese products.

 

Segment operating income increased $104 million (18.5%), due primarily to lower raw material costs (primarily lower dairy costs), lower manufacturing costs, lower costs due to the completion of the Restructuring Program and lower marketing, administration and research costs, partially offset by lower net pricing and higher marketing support costs.

 

2008 compared with 2007:

Net revenues increased $262 million (7.0%), due to higher net pricing (14.1 pp), partially offset by unfavorable volume/mix (7.1 pp). Higher net pricing reflected input cost-driven pricing, partially offset by increased promotional spending in our natural cheese category. Unfavorable volume/mix was driven primarily by shipment declines in all of our major cheese categories, partially offset by new product innovations, primarily Kraft Bagel-fuls.

 

Segment operating income increased $76 million (15.6%), due primarily to higher net pricing and lower Restructuring Program costs, partially offset by higher raw material costs, unfavorable volume/mix, higher manufacturing costs and higher marketing, administration and research costs.

 

U.S. Convenient Meals

        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2009     2008     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $           4,496      $           4,240      $              256                   6.0%         
 

Segment operating income

    510        339                     171                 50.4%         
        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2008     2007     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $ 4,240      $ 3,905      $              335                   8.6%         
 

Segment operating income

    339        319                       20                   6.3%         

 

31


2009 compared with 2008:

Net revenues increased $256 million (6.0%), due to favorable volume/mix (4.6 pp) and higher net pricing (1.4 pp). Net revenues increased in meats, primarily due to higher net pricing (increased input cost-driven pricing, net of increased promotional spending). Also, volume increased due to higher shipments in bacon, cold cuts and hot dogs, partially offset by the discontinuation of less profitable product lines. In pizza, net revenues increased due to the volume growth in our DiGiorno and California Pizza Kitchen premium brands, as well as growth in our Jack’s and Tombstone pizza brands, partially offset by the unfavorable impact of the discontinuation of less profitable product lines. This was partially offset by lower net pricing driven by increased promotional spending.

Segment operating income increased $171 million (50.4%), due primarily to favorable volume/mix (higher shipments and improved product mix), higher net pricing, lower raw material costs, lower costs due to the completion of the Restructuring Program and lower manufacturing costs. These favorable factors were partially offset by higher marketing support costs and higher marketing, administration and research costs.

Frozen Pizza Divestiture - On January 4, 2010, we entered into an agreement to sell the assets of our Frozen Pizza business to Nestlé for total consideration of $3.7 billion. The sale, which is subject to customary conditions, including regulatory clearances, includes the DiGiorno, Tombstone and Jack’s brands in the U.S., the Delissio brand in Canada and the California Pizza Kitchen trademark license.

U.S. pizza net revenues increased $174 million (13.5%) to $1,467 million in 2009, due to favorable volume/mix (15.4 pp), partially offset by lower net pricing (1.9 pp). Favorable volume/mix was driven by volume gains in DiGiorno and California Pizza Kitchen premium brands, as well as growth in our Jack’s and Tombstone pizza brands. This was partially offset by lower net pricing driven by increased promotional spending. Canada pizza net revenues were $165 million in 2009.

U.S. pizza segment operating income increased $62 million (29.0%) to $276 million in 2009, due primarily to favorable volume/mix (higher shipments and improved product mix), lower raw material costs and lower manufacturing costs. These favorable factors were partially offset by higher marketing support costs, higher marketing, administration and research costs and lower net pricing. Canada pizza segment operating income was $65 million in 2009.

The combined segment operating income for Frozen Pizza as presented excludes stranded overheads of $108.

2008 compared with 2007:

Net revenues increased $335 million (8.6%), due to higher net pricing (5.6 pp) and favorable volume/mix (3.0 pp). Net revenues increased in meats due to higher net pricing, driven by input cost-driven pricing in sandwich meats, Lunchables and hot dogs. Also contributing to meats net revenue growth was higher shipments of bacon, as well as new product introductions, including Oscar Mayer Deli Creations sandwiches (flatbreads) and Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh meats (shaved singles and carved). In pizza, net revenues increased due to higher input cost-driven pricing, net of increased promotional spending, volume growth in DiGiorno and California Pizza Kitchen premium brands and the launch of the For One product line of individual size pizzas.

Segment operating income increased $20 million (6.3%), due primarily to higher net pricing, favorable volume/mix and lower marketing support costs, partially offset by higher raw material costs, higher marketing, administration and research costs, higher manufacturing costs and higher Restructuring Program costs.

 

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U.S. Grocery

        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2009     2008     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $           3,453      $           3,389      $                64      1.9%         
 

Segment operating income

    1,146        1,009        137                  13.6%         
        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2008     2007     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $ 3,389      $ 3,277      $ 112      3.4%         
 

Segment operating income

    1,009        1,022        (13   (1.3%      

 

2009 compared with 2008:

Net revenues increased $64 million (1.9%), due to higher net pricing (3.5 pp), partially offset by unfavorable volume/mix (1.6 pp). Net revenues increased due to higher input cost-driven pricing across several of our key categories, primarily spoonable salad dressings, dry packaged desserts and ready-to-eat desserts. Net revenues growth was partially offset by lower volume, net of favorable product mix. This reflected the 2008 exit of Handi-Snacks ready-to-eat desserts, as well as lower shipments in pourable and spoonable salad dressings, Jell-O ready-to-eat-desserts, barbecue sauce and Cool Whip whipped topping, which were partially offset by growth in Kraft macaroni and cheese dinners.

 

Segment operating income increased $137 million (13.6%), due primarily to higher net pricing, lower costs due to the completion of the Restructuring Program and lower manufacturing costs, partially offset by higher marketing support costs, unfavorable volume/mix (lower shipments, net of improved product mix) and higher marketing, administration and research costs.

 

2008 compared with 2007:

Net revenues increased $112 million (3.4%), due to higher net pricing (6.2 pp), partially offset by unfavorable volume/mix (2.8 pp). Net revenues increased due to higher input cost-driven pricing across our key categories, primarily spoonable and pourable salad dressings and Kraft macaroni and cheese dinners. In addition, net revenues growth was impacted by unfavorable volume/mix driven by lower shipments in spoonable and pourable salad dressings, ready-to-eat desserts and barbecue sauce, partially offset by volume gains in Kraft macaroni and cheese dinners.

 

Segment operating income decreased $13 million (1.3%), due to higher raw material costs, unfavorable volume/mix (lower shipments, net of improved product mix), higher marketing, administration and research costs and higher Restructuring Program costs, partially offset by higher net pricing and lower marketing support costs.

 

U.S. Snacks

        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2009     2008     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $ 4,964      $ 5,025      $ (61   (1.2%      
 

Segment operating income

    723        638                       85      13.3%         
        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2008     2007     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $ 5,025      $ 4,879      $ 146                3.0%         
 

Segment operating income

    638        716        (78   (10.9%      

 

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2009 compared with 2008:

Net revenues decreased $61 million (1.2%), due to unfavorable volume/mix (1.7 pp) and the impact of divestitures (0.2 pp), partially offset by higher net pricing (0.7 pp). Biscuits net revenues increased, driven by higher input cost-driven pricing, partially offset by unfavorable volume/mix (unfavorable product mix, net of higher shipments). Biscuits volume gain was due to higher shipments primarily in Ritz crackers, Oreo cookies, Triscuit crackers and Chips Ahoy! cookies. Snack bars net revenues decreased, primarily due to volume declines in breakfast bars. Snack nuts net revenues decreased, primarily driven by lower net pricing, due to higher promotional spending, and unfavorable volume/mix reflecting lower volume due primarily to the recall of certain products containing pistachios in March 2009.

Segment operating income increased $85 million (13.3%), due primarily to lower costs due to the completion of the Restructuring Program, lower marketing support costs, lower manufacturing costs, higher net pricing, the gain on the divestiture of our Balance bar operations in the U.S. and lower marketing, administration and research costs. These favorable factors were partially offset by higher raw material costs and unfavorable volume/mix (unfavorable product mix and lower shipments, including the recall of certain products containing pistachios).

2008 compared with 2007:

Net revenues increased $146 million (3.0%), due to higher net pricing (8.4 pp) and the impact of our LU Biscuit acquisition (0.4 pp), partially offset by unfavorable volume/mix (5.6 pp) and the impact of divestitures (0.2 pp). Biscuits net revenues increased, driven by higher input cost-driven pricing and lower promotional spending, partially offset by unfavorable volume/mix. Biscuits unfavorable volume/mix was driven by base business volume declines in Wheat Thins crackers, Cheese Nips crackers and Chips Ahoy! cookies, partially offset by gains in Oreo cookies as well as new product introductions including Kraft macaroni and cheese crackers and Nilla Cakesters snack cakes. Snack bars net revenues decreased, driven by volume declines in breakfast bars, primarily due to product pruning. Snack nuts net revenues decreased, driven by lower volume, partially offset by higher net pricing.

Segment operating income decreased $78 million (10.9%), due to unfavorable volume/mix (lower shipments and unfavorable mix), higher raw material costs, higher manufacturing costs, higher Restructuring Program costs, higher marketing, administration and research costs, a 2007 gain on the divestiture of our hot cereal assets and trademarks and the impact of divestitures. These unfavorable variances were partially offset by higher net pricing and lower marketing support costs.

Canada & N.A. Foodservice

        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2009     2008     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $           4,087      $           4,294      $ (207   (4.8%      
 

Segment operating income

    527        448                       79      17.6%         
        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2008     2007     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $ 4,294      $ 4,080      $ 214                  5.2%         
 

Segment operating income

    448        443        5      1.1%         

2009 compared with 2008:

Net revenues decreased $207 million (4.8%), due to the significant impact of unfavorable foreign currency (4.6 pp) and unfavorable volume/mix (0.2 pp). In Canada, net revenues increased, driven by volume gains across all retail businesses and higher net pricing, partially offset by unfavorable foreign currency. In N.A. Foodservice, net revenues decreased, driven by lower volume, due to industry-wide declines in restaurant traffic and the discontinuation of less profitable product lines, lower input cost-driven pricing and unfavorable foreign currency.

Segment operating income increased $79 million (17.6%), due primarily to lower costs due to the completion of the Restructuring Program and lower raw material costs, partially offset by unfavorable foreign currency, higher manufacturing costs and higher marketing support costs.

 

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2008 compared with 2007:

Net revenues increased $214 million (5.2%), due primarily to higher net pricing (3.9 pp), favorable foreign currency (1.3 pp) and favorable volume/mix (0.3 pp), partially offset by the impact of divestitures (0.4 pp). In Canada, net revenues growth was primarily driven by volume gains across all retail businesses, favorable foreign currency and higher net pricing. In N.A. Foodservice, net revenues increased, primarily driven by higher input cost-driven pricing, partially offset by unfavorable volume/mix.

Segment operating income increased $5 million (1.1%), due primarily to higher net pricing, lower manufacturing costs, lower marketing, administration and research costs, favorable volume/mix (higher shipments, net of unfavorable mix) and favorable foreign currency. These favorable variances were partially offset by higher raw material costs, higher Restructuring Program costs and higher marketing support costs.

Kraft Foods Europe

        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2009     2008     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $           8,768      $           9,728      $ (960   (9.9%      
 

Segment operating income

    785        182                     603      100.0+%         
        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2008     2007     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $ 9,728      $ 7,007      $ 2,721                  38.8%         
 

Segment operating income

    182        455        (273   (60.0%      

2009 compared with 2008:

Net revenues decreased $960 million (9.9%), due to the significant impact of unfavorable foreign currency (6.7 pp), unfavorable volume/mix (2.8 pp) and the impact of divestitures (2.2 pp), partially offset by higher net pricing (1.8 pp). Unfavorable foreign currency primarily reflected the strength of the U.S. dollar versus the euro and British pound. In addition, volume declines in coffee, biscuits, chocolate and cheese and the discontinuation of less profitable product lines drove net revenues lower. These unfavorable revenue drivers were partially offset by higher net pricing, primarily in chocolate, coffee and biscuits.

Segment operating income increased $603 million (100+%), due to lower costs due to the completion of the Restructuring Program (including the reversal of prior year costs), higher net pricing, the 2008 net loss on the divestitures of several operations in Spain, 2008 asset impairment charges related to certain international intangible assets and the divestiture of our Nordic and Baltic snacks operation, lower manufacturing costs and lower raw material costs. These favorable variances were partially offset by unfavorable foreign currency, higher marketing support costs, higher non-recurring costs associated with the Kraft Foods Europe Reorganization, higher marketing, administration and research costs (primarily spending on Cost Savings Initiatives), asset impairment charges related to certain intangible assets in the Netherlands and to write off an investment in Norway, the net loss on the divestiture of a plant in Spain, unfavorable volume/mix (lower shipments, net of improved product mix) and the impact of divestitures.

2008 compared with 2007:

Net revenues increased $2,721 million (38.8%), due to the impact of our LU Biscuit acquisition (33.1 pp), favorable foreign currency (5.5 pp) and higher net pricing (4.7 pp), partially offset by the impact of divestitures (3.5 pp) and unfavorable volume/mix (1.0 pp). Higher input cost-driven pricing was partially offset by higher promotional spending. Unfavorable volume/mix was driven by declines in coffee and cheese shipments, partially offset by gains in chocolate.

Segment operating income decreased $273 million (60.0%), due primarily to higher raw material costs, higher Restructuring Program costs, the net loss on the divestitures of several operations in Spain, asset impairment charges related to certain international intangible assets and the divestiture of our Nordic and Baltic snacks operation, higher marketing, administration and research costs and the impact of divestitures. These unfavorable

 

35


variances were partially offset by higher net pricing, the impact of our LU Biscuit acquisition (net of associated integration costs), lower manufacturing costs, lower marketing support costs and favorable volume/mix (improved mix, net of lower shipments).

Kraft Foods Europe Reorganization - The reorganization of our European operations to function on a pan-European centralized category management and value chain model was completed in 2009 for our Chocolate, Coffee and Cheese categories. Significant progress was made in 2009 related to the integration of our Europe Biscuits business, and we expect the integration to be completed by mid-2010. The European Principal Company (“EPC”) will manage the European categories centrally and make decisions for all aspects of the value chain, except for sales and distribution. The European subsidiaries will execute sales and distribution locally, and the local production companies will act as toll manufacturers on behalf of the EPC. The EPC legal entity has been incorporated as Kraft Foods Europe GmbH in Zurich, Switzerland. As part of the reorganization, we incurred $32 million of severance costs, $25 million of implementation costs and $56 million of other non-recurring costs during 2009; we incurred $16 million of restructuring costs, $39 million of implementation costs and $11 million of other non-recurring costs during 2008; and we incurred $21 million of restructuring costs, $24 million of implementation costs and $10 million of other non-recurring costs during 2007. Through 2009, we have incurred charges of $241 million related to our Kraft Foods Europe Reorganization, including the above mentioned costs. We expect to incur approximately $40 million in additional charges in 2010 to complete the integration of the Europe Biscuits business. In 2009, these charges were recorded within cost of sales and marketing, administration and research costs. The 2008 and 2007 restructuring and implementation costs were recorded as part of our overall Restructuring Program. Other non-recurring costs relating to our Kraft Foods Europe Reorganization were recorded as marketing, administration and research costs. Management believes the disclosure of implementation and other non-recurring charges provides readers of our financial statements greater transparency to the total costs of our Kraft Foods Europe Reorganization.

Kraft Foods Developing Markets

        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2009     2008     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $           7,956      $           8,248      $ (292   (3.5%      
 

Segment operating income

    936        815                     121      14.8%         
        For the Years Ended
December 31,
                         
        2008     2007     $ change     % change              
        (in millions)                          
 

Net revenues

  $ 8,248      $ 5,975      $ 2,273                  38.0%         
 

Segment operating income

    815        588        227      38.6%         

2009 compared with 2008:

Net revenues decreased $292 million (3.5%), due to the significant impact of unfavorable foreign currency (12.9 pp), the absence of the 2008 favorable resolution of a Brazilian value added tax claim (0.8 pp) and the impact of divestitures (0.5 pp), partially offset by higher net pricing (8.9 pp) and favorable volume/mix (1.8 pp). In Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, net revenues decreased, driven primarily by unfavorable foreign currency, partially offset by higher net pricing across most of the region and favorable volume/mix (improved product mix, net of lower shipments). In Latin America, net revenues increased, primarily driven by higher net pricing across the region and favorable volume/mix (lower shipments, net of improved product mix), partially offset by unfavorable foreign currency and the absence of the 2008 favorable resolution of a Brazilian value added tax claim. In Asia Pacific, net revenues increased, due to higher net pricing across most of the region and favorable volume/mix (improved product mix, net of lower shipments), primarily in China, partially offset by unfavorable foreign currency.

Segment operating income increased $121 million (14.8%), due primarily to higher net pricing, favorable volume/mix (improved product mix, net of lower shipments), lower costs due to the completion of the Restructuring Program (including the reversal of prior year costs) and 2008 asset impairment charges related to certain international intangible assets, a juice operation in Brazil and a cheese plant in Australia. These favorable variances were partially offset by higher raw material costs, higher manufacturing costs, unfavorable foreign currency, higher marketing, administration and research costs, higher marketing support costs and the absence of the 2008 favorable resolution of a Brazilian value added tax claim.

 

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Venezuela - In the fourth quarter of 2009, the Venezuelan economy was classified as highly inflationary under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“U.S. GAAP”). Effective January 1, 2010, our Venezuelan subsidiary is being accounted for under highly inflationary accounting rules, which principally means all transactions are recorded in U.S. dollars. Venezuela has three exchange rates: the official rate, the consumer staples rate and the secondary (or parallel) rate. We have historically used and will continue to use the official rate to translate our Venezuelan operations. However, prior to this change in accounting, cash that we had exchanged into U.S. dollars using the secondary market was carried at that rate. Upon the change to highly inflationary accounting, we were required to translate our U.S. dollars on hand using the official rate. Additionally, on January 8, 2010, the Venezuelan government devalued its currency. Accordingly, we were required to revalue our net assets in Venezuela and we recorded an insignificant loss, which will be reflected in our first quarter 2010 results. We expect our 2010 operating results to be negatively impacted by $75 million to $100 million as a result of the aforementioned devaluation. This disclosure does not reflect the impacts of our recent acquisition activity.

2008 compared with 2007:

Net revenues increased $2,273 million (38.0%), due primarily to the impact of our LU Biscuit acquisition (15.9 pp), higher net pricing (11.0 pp), favorable volume/mix (5.4 pp), favorable foreign currency (4.7 pp) and the favorable resolution of a Brazilian value added tax claim (1.1 pp). In Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa, net revenues increased, driven by higher net pricing across the region, volume growth in chocolate, biscuits and coffee categories, our LU Biscuit acquisition and favorable foreign currency. In Latin America, net revenues increased, driven by favorable foreign currency, higher net pricing, the favorable resolution of a value added tax claim and favorable volume/mix in Brazil; higher net pricing and improved product mix in Argentina; and higher net pricing and favorable volume/mix in Venezuela. In Asia Pacific, net revenues increased due primarily to our LU Biscuit acquisition, higher net pricing across the region and favorable foreign currency.

Segment operating income increased $227 million (38.6%) due to higher net pricing, favorable volume/mix, the impact of our LU Biscuit acquisition (net of associated integration costs), the favorable resolution of a Brazilian value added tax claim, and favorable foreign currency. These favorable variances were partially offset by higher raw material costs, higher manufacturing costs, higher marketing, administration and research costs, higher Restructuring Program costs, higher marketing support costs, 2008 asset impairment charges related to certain international intangible assets, a juice operation in Brazil and a cheese plant in Australia and a 2007 gain on the divestiture of our sugar confectionery assets in Romania and related trademarks.

Critical Accounting Policies

Note 1, Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, to the consolidated financial statements includes a summary of the significant accounting policies we used to prepare our consolidated financial statements. We have discussed the selection and disclosure of our critical accounting policies and estimates with our Audit Committee. The following is a review of the more significant assumptions and estimates, as well as the accounting policies we used to prepare our consolidated financial statements.

Principles of Consolidation:

The consolidated financial statements include Kraft Foods, as well as our wholly owned and majority owned subsidiaries. Our domestic operating subsidiaries report year-end results as of the last Saturday of the year, and our international operating subsidiaries generally report year-end results two weeks prior to the last Saturday of the year.

We account for investments in which we exercise significant influence (20% - 50% ownership interest) under the equity method of accounting. We use the cost method of accounting for investments in which we have an ownership interest of less than 20% and in which we do not exercise significant influence. Noncontrolling interest in subsidiaries consists of the equity interest of noncontrolling investors in consolidated subsidiaries of Kraft Foods. All intercompany transactions are eliminated.

Use of Estimates:

We prepare our financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, which requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect a number of amounts in our financial statements. Significant accounting policy elections, estimates and assumptions include, among others, pension and benefit plan assumptions, lives and valuation assumptions of goodwill and intangible assets, marketing programs and income taxes. We base our estimates on

 

37


historical experience and other assumptions that we believe are reasonable. If actual amounts differ from estimates, we include the revisions in our consolidated results of operations in the period in which we know the actual amounts. Historically, the aggregate differences, if any, between our estimates and actual amounts in any year have not had a significant impact on our consolidated financial statements.

Inventories:

Inventories are stated at the lower of cost or market. We record inventory allowances for overstocked and obsolete inventories due to ingredient and packaging changes. Effective January 1, 2009, we changed our method of valuing our U.S. inventories to the average cost method. In prior years, principally all U.S. inventories were valued using the last-in, first-out (“LIFO”) method. We believe that the average cost method of accounting for U.S. inventories is preferable and will improve financial reporting by better matching revenues and expenses to current costs, by better aligning our external reporting with our competitors, and by aligning our external reporting with our tax basis of accounting. The financial statements for all periods presented were conformed to the change in accounting policy. With this change, we value all of our inventories using the average cost method.

Refer to Note 1, Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, to the consolidated financial statements for further details of this change in accounting policy.

Long-Lived Assets:

We review long-lived assets, including amortizable intangible assets, for impairment when conditions exist that indicate the carrying amount of the assets may not be fully recoverable. We perform undiscounted operating cash flow analyses to determine if an impairment exists. When testing assets held for use for impairment, we group assets and liabilities at the lowest level for which cash flows are separately identifiable. If an impairment is determined to exist, the loss is calculated based on estimated fair value. Impairment losses on assets to be disposed of, if any, are based on the estimated proceeds to be received, less costs of disposal.

Goodwill and Intangible Assets:

We test goodwill and non-amortizable intangible assets at least annually for impairment. We have recognized goodwill in our reporting units, which are generally one level below our operating segments. We use a two step process to test goodwill at the reporting unit level. The first step involves a comparison of the estimated fair value of each reporting unit with its carrying value. Fair value is estimated using discounted cash flows of the reporting unit based on planned growth rates, and estimates of discount rates and residual values. If the carrying value exceeds the fair value, the second step of the process is necessary. The second step measures the difference between the carrying value and implied fair value of goodwill. To test non-amortizable intangible assets for impairment, we compare the fair value of the intangible asset with its carrying value. Fair value of non-amortizable intangible assets is determined using our planned growth rates, and estimates of discount rates and royalty rates. If the carrying value exceeds fair value, the intangible asset is considered impaired and is reduced to fair value. Definite-lived intangible assets are amortized over their estimated useful lives.

We perform our annual impairment review of goodwill and non-amortizable intangible assets as of October 1 each year. The basis of our valuation methodology for estimating the fair value of our 20 reporting units is a 20-year projection of discounted cash flows that is based on our annual strategic planning process. Estimating the fair value of individual reporting units requires us to make assumptions and estimates regarding our future plans, industry and economic conditions. For our reporting units within our Kraft Foods North America and Kraft Foods Europe geographic units, we used a market-participant, weighted-average cost of capital of 7.5% to discount the projected cash flows of those operations. For our reporting units within our Kraft Foods Developing Markets geographic unit, we used a risk-rated discount rate of 10.5%.

 

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As a result of our 2009 annual review of goodwill and non-amortizable intangible assets, we recorded a $12 million charge for the impairment of intangible assets in the Netherlands. During our 2009 impairment review, we also noted that the following three reporting units were the most sensitive to near-term changes in our discounted cash flow assumptions:

 

         Percentage of
Excess Fair
Value over
Carrying Value
   October 1, 2009
Carrying Value
of Goodwill
                   
              (in millions)                    
 

U.S. Salty Snacks

   11%    $             1,186            
 

N.A. Foodservice

   22%      861            
 

Europe Biscuits

   11%      2,555            

Each of our reporting units passed the first step of our 2009 annual impairment review with an estimated fair value greater than 110% of its carrying value. Looking past 2009, there are uncertainties within the three identified reporting units that could potentially require further analysis in the future in order for us to determine if a goodwill impairment exists within any of the individual reporting units. Significant uncertainties are:

 

   

Continued economic uncertainty may lead customers to purchase more retailer brands or other economy brands, which could reduce sales volumes of our products or shift our product mix to our lower margin offerings. If we are not able to maintain or improve our brand image or value proposition, it could have a material effect on our market share and our profitability. As we primarily use a forecasted discounted cash flow model based on segment operating income, a material decrease in profitability would adversely affect our estimated fair value of any of these reporting units.

   

Our U.S. Salty Snacks business has experienced volume declines over the past year. If this trend were to continue or worsen, it would adversely affect the estimated fair value of U.S. Salty Snacks reporting unit.

   

Our N.A. Foodservice business is heavily dependent on the restaurant industry, which has been negatively impacted by the recent recession. Continued industry-wide declines in restaurant traffic would adversely affect the estimated fair value of the N.A. Foodservice reporting unit.

   

Our Europe Biscuits business is primarily made up of the western European part of our 2007 LU Biscuit acquisition. Shortly after our acquisition, the economic environment in Europe deteriorated and ultimately lead to a recessionary period. If general economic conditions continue to worsen, it would adversely affect the estimated fair value of our Europe Biscuits reporting unit.

During the fourth quarter of 2008, we completed the annual review of goodwill and non-amortizable intangible assets and recorded a $44 million charge for the impairment of intangible assets in the Netherlands, France and Puerto Rico. During our 2008 impairment review, we determined that our Europe Biscuits reporting unit was the most sensitive to near-term changes in our discounted cash flow assumptions, as it contains a significant portion of the goodwill recorded upon our 2007 acquisition of LU Biscuit.

Insurance and Self-Insurance:

We use a combination of insurance and self-insurance for a number of risks, including workers’ compensation, general liability, automobile liability, product liability and our obligation for employee health care benefits. Liabilities associated with the risks are estimated by considering historical claims experience and other actuarial assumptions.

Revenue Recognition:

We recognize revenues when title and risk of loss pass to customers, which generally occurs upon shipment or delivery of goods. Revenues are recorded net of consumer incentives and trade promotions and include all shipping and handling charges billed to customers. Kraft Foods’ shipping and handling costs are classified as part of cost of sales. A provision for product returns and allowances for bad debts are also recorded as reductions to revenues within the same period that the revenue is recognized.

Marketing Costs:

We promote our products with advertising, consumer incentives and trade promotions. These programs include, but are not limited to, discounts, coupons, rebates, in-store display incentives and volume-based incentives. We expense advertising costs either in the period the advertising first takes place or as incurred. Consumer incentive

 

39


and trade promotion activities are recorded as a reduction to revenues based on amounts estimated as being due to customers and consumers at the end of a period. We base these estimates principally on historical utilization and redemption rates. For interim reporting purposes, advertising and consumer incentive expenses are charged to operations as a percentage of volume, based on estimated volume and related expense for the full year. We do not defer costs on our year-end consolidated balance sheet and all marketing costs are recorded as an expense in the year incurred.

Environmental Costs:

We are subject to laws and regulations relating to the protection of the environment. We accrue for environmental remediation obligations on an undiscounted basis when amounts are probable and can be reasonably estimated. The accruals are adjusted as new information develops or circumstances change. Recoveries of environmental remediation costs from third parties are recorded as assets when recovery of those costs is deemed probable. At December 31, 2009, our subsidiaries were involved in 71 active actions in the U.S. under Superfund legislation (and other similar actions) related to current operations and certain former or divested operations for which we retain liability.

Based on information currently available, we believe that the ultimate resolution of existing environmental remediation actions and our compliance in general with environmental laws and regulations will not have a material effect on our financial results. However, we cannot quantify with certainty the potential impact of future compliance efforts and environmental remediation actions.

Employee Benefit Plans:

In September 2006, new guidance was issued surrounding employers’ accounting for defined benefit pension and other postretirement plans. The new guidance required us to measure plan assets and benefit obligations as of the balance sheet date beginning in 2008. We previously measured our non-U.S. pension plans (other than certain Canadian and French pension plans) at September 30 of each year. On December 31, 2008, we recorded an after-tax decrease of $8 million to retained earnings using the 15-month approach to proportionally allocate the transition adjustment required upon adoption of the measurement provision of the new guidance. The plan assets and benefit obligations of our pension plans and the benefit obligations of our postretirement plans are now all measured at year-end.

We provide a range of benefits to our employees and retired employees. These include pension benefits, postretirement health care benefits and postemployment benefits, consisting primarily of severance. We record amounts relating to these plans based on calculations specified by U.S. GAAP. These calculations require the use of various actuarial assumptions, such as discount rates, assumed rates of return on plan assets, compensation increases, turnover rates and health care cost trend rates. We review our actuarial assumptions on an annual basis and make modifications to the assumptions based on current rates and trends when appropriate. As permitted by U.S. GAAP, we generally amortize any effect of the modifications over future periods. We believe that the assumptions used in recording our plan obligations are reasonable based on our experience and advice from our actuaries. Refer to Note 11, Benefit Plans, to the consolidated financial statements for a discussion of the assumptions used.

We recorded the following amounts in earnings for these employee benefit plans during the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007:

 

         2009     2008     2007      
               (in millions)            
 

U.S. pension plan cost

   $             313      $             160      $             212     
 

Non-U.S. pension plan cost

     77        82        123     
 

Postretirement health care cost

     221        254        260     
 

Postemployment benefit plan cost

     143        571        140     
 

Employee savings plan cost

     94        93        83     
 

Multiemployer pension plan contributions

     29        27        26     
 

Multiemployer medical plan contributions

     35        33        33     
                            
 

Net expense for employee benefit plans

   $ 912      $ 1,220      $ 877     
                            

 

40


The 2009 net expense for employee benefit plans of $912 million decreased by $308 million over the 2008 amount. The cost decrease primarily related to lower postemployment benefit plan costs as we completed our five-year Restructuring Program in 2008, partially offset by higher pension plan costs, including a lower expected return on plan assets and higher amortization of the net loss from experience differences. The 2008 net expense for employee benefit plans of $1,220 million increased by $343 million over the 2007 amount. The cost increase primarily related to higher postemployment benefit plan costs related to the Restructuring Program, partially offset by lower pension plan costs, including lower amortization of the net loss from experience differences.

We plan to make contributions of approximately $40 million to our U.S. pension plans and approximately $200 million to our non-U.S. pension plans in 2010. Our estimated pension contributions do not include anticipated contributions for our newly acquired Cadbury business. We will update this figure in future filings to reflect these anticipated contributions. Our actual contributions may differ from our planned contributions due to many factors, including changes in tax and other benefit laws, or significant differences between expected and actual pension asset performance or interest rates. For our U.S. qualified pension plans, we are not currently required to make any U.S. pension plan contributions under the Pension Protection Act of 2006 in 2010.

We expect our 2010 net expense for employee benefit plans to increase by approximately $40 million. The increase is primarily due to higher forecasted non-U.S. pension plan costs due to plan assumption changes, partially offset by lower forecasted postemployment benefit plan costs. Our non-U.S. pension plan costs will be higher primarily due to a weighted-average decrease of 120 basis points in our discount rate assumption. As this disclosure was made as of December 31, 2009, it does not reflect the impacts of our recent acquisition and divestiture activity.

We will be freezing our U.S. pension plans for current salaried and non-union hourly employees effective December 31, 2019. Pension accruals for all salaried and non-union employees who are currently earning pension benefits will end on December 31, 2019, and continuing pay and service will be used to calculate the pension benefits through December 31, 2019. Our projected benefit obligation decreased $168 million in 2009, and we incurred a $5 million curtailment charge in 2009 related to the freeze. We expect the freeze to lower our annual U.S. pension plan costs by approximately $40 million beginning in 2010. Additionally, for salaried and non-union hourly employees hired in the U.S. after January 1, 2009, we discontinued benefits under our U.S. pension plans, and we replaced them with an enhanced company contribution to our employee savings plan. We do not expect this to have a significant impact on our 2010 pension plan cost.

Our 2010 health care cost trend rate assumption remained unchanged at 7.00% for our U.S. postretirement plans and remained unchanged at 9.00% for our Canadian postretirement plans. We established these rates based upon our most recent experience as well as our expectation for health care trend rates going forward. We anticipate that our health care cost trend rate assumption will be 5.00% for U.S. plans by 2014 and 6.00% for Canadian plans by 2016. Assumed health care cost trend rates have a significant effect on the amounts reported for the health care plans. A one-percentage-point change in assumed health care cost trend rates would have the following effects as of December 31, 2009:

 

         One-Percentage-Point               
             Increase               Decrease                     
 

Effect on total of service and interest cost

   12.3%    (10.2%       
 

Effect on postretirement benefit obligation

   9.8%    (8.3%       

Our 2010 discount rate assumption decreased to 5.70% from 6.10% for our U.S. postretirement plans and decreased to 5.25% from 7.60% for our Canadian postretirement plans. Our 2010 discount rate decreased to 5.93% from 6.10% for our U.S. pension plans. We model these discount rates using a portfolio of high quality, fixed-income debt instruments with durations that match the expected future cash flows of the benefit obligations. Our 2010 discount rate assumption for our non-U.S. pension plans decreased to 5.21% from 6.41%. We developed the discount rates for our non-U.S. plans from local bond indices that match local benefit obligations as closely as possible. Changes in our discount rates were primarily the result of changes in bond yields year-over-year.

Our 2010 expected rate of return on plan assets remained unchanged at 8.00% for our U.S. pension plans. We determine our expected rate of return on plan assets from the plan assets’ historical long-term investment performance, current asset allocation and estimates of future long-term returns by asset class. We attempt to

 

41


maintain our target asset allocation by rebalancing between equity and debt asset classes as we make contributions and monthly benefit payments. We intend to rebalance our plan portfolios by mid-2010 by making contributions and monthly benefit payments.

While we do not anticipate further changes in the 2010 assumptions for our U.S. and non-U.S. pension and postretirement health care plans, as a sensitivity measure, a fifty-basis point change in our discount rate or a fifty-basis point change in the expected rate of return on plan assets would have the following effects, increase / (decrease) in cost, as of December 31, 2009:

 

         U.S. Plans    Non-U.S. Plans    
         Fifty-Basis-Point    Fifty-Basis-Point    
               Increase                 Decrease                Increase                 Decrease          
         (in millions)    
 

Effect of change in discount rate on
pension costs

   $             (59   $               59    $             (24   $               26  
 

Effect of change in expected rate of return
on plan assets on pension costs

     (30     30      (18     18  
 

Effect of change in discount rate on
postretirement health care costs

     (9     9      (1     1  

Financial Instruments:

As we operate globally, we use certain financial instruments to manage our foreign currency exchange rate, commodity price and interest rate risks. We monitor and manage these exposures as part of our overall risk management program. Our risk management program focuses on the unpredictability of financial markets and seeks to reduce the potentially adverse effects that the volatility of these markets may have on our operating results. We maintain foreign currency, commodity price and interest rate risk management strategies that seek to reduce significant, unanticipated earnings fluctuations that may arise from volatility in foreign currency exchange rates, commodity prices and interest rates, principally through the use of derivative instruments.

Financial instruments qualifying for hedge accounting must maintain a specified level of effectiveness between the hedging instrument and the item being hedged, both at inception and throughout the hedged period. We formally document the nature of and relationships between the hedging instruments and hedged items, as well as our risk management objectives, strategies for undertaking the various hedge transactions and method of assessing hedge effectiveness. Additionally, for hedges of forecasted transactions, the significant characteristics and expected terms of the forecasted transaction must be specifically identified, and it must be probable that each forecasted transaction will occur. If we deem it probable that the forecasted transaction will not occur, we recognize the gain or loss in earnings currently.

By using derivatives to hedge exposures to changes in exchange rates and commodity prices, we have exposure on these derivatives to credit and market risk. We are exposed to credit risk that the counterparty might fail to fulfill its performance obligations under the terms of the derivative contract. We minimize our credit risk by entering into transactions with high quality counterparties with investment grade credit ratings, limiting the amount of exposure we have with each counterparty and monitoring the financial condition of our counterparties. In October 2008, one of our counterparties, Lehman Brothers Commercial Corporation, filed for bankruptcy. Consequently, we wrote off an insignificant asset related to derivatives held with them. This did not have a significant impact on our foreign currency risk management program. We also maintain a policy of requiring that all significant, non-exchange traded derivative contracts with a duration greater than one year be governed by an International Swaps and Derivatives Association master agreement. Market risk is the risk that the value of the financial instrument might be adversely affected by a change in foreign currency exchange rates, commodity prices, or interest rates. We manage market risk by incorporating monitoring parameters within our risk management strategy that limit the types of derivative instruments and derivative strategies we use, and the degree of market risk that may be undertaken by the use of derivative instruments.

We record derivative financial instruments at fair value in our consolidated balance sheets as either current assets or current liabilities. Changes in the fair value of a derivative that is highly effective and designated as a cash flow hedge, to the extent that the hedge is effective, are recorded each period either in accumulated other comprehensive earnings / (losses) or in earnings. Gains and losses on derivative instruments reported in

 

42


accumulated other comprehensive earnings / (losses) are reclassified to the consolidated statement of earnings in the periods in which operating results are affected by the hedged item. Changes in the fair value of a derivative that is highly effective and designated as a fair value hedge, along with the changes in the fair value of the hedged asset or liability that are attributable to the hedged risk, are recorded in current period earnings. Cash flows from hedging instruments are classified in the same manner as the affected hedged item in the consolidated statements of cash flows.

Income Taxes:

Prior to our spin-off from Altria, we were included in Altria’s consolidated federal income tax return. We generally computed income taxes on a separate company basis; however, some of our foreign tax credits, capital losses and other credits could not be used on a separate company basis. To the extent that Altria used our foreign tax credits and other tax benefits in its consolidated federal income tax return, we recognized the benefit in the calculation of our provision for income taxes. This benefit was approximately $270 million in 2007. We made payments to, or were reimbursed by, Altria for the tax effects resulting from being included in Altria’s tax return. As of March 31, 2007, we were no longer a member of the Altria consolidated tax return group. We file our own federal consolidated income tax returns.

In July 2006, new guidance was issued which addressed accounting for the uncertainty in income taxes. We adopted the guidance effective January 1, 2007. The guidance clarified when tax benefits should be recorded in the financial statements and provided measurement criteria for valuing such benefits. In order for us to recognize benefits, our tax position must be more likely than not to be sustained upon audit. The amount we recognize is measured as the largest amount of benefit that is greater than 50 percent likely of being realized upon ultimate settlement. Before the implementation of this guidance, we established additional provisions for certain positions that were likely to be challenged even though we believe that those existing tax positions were fully supportable. The adoption of this guidance resulted in an increase to equity as of January 1, 2007 of $213 million.

We recognize deferred tax assets for deductible temporary differences, operating loss carryforwards and tax credit carryforwards. Deferred tax assets are reduced by a valuation allowance if it is more likely than not that some portion, or all, of the deferred tax assets will not be realized.

Commodity Trends

We are a major purchaser of dairy, coffee, cocoa, wheat, corn products, soybean and vegetable oils, nuts, meat products, and sugar and other sweeteners. We also use significant quantities of plastic, glass and cardboard to package our products, and natural gas for our factories and warehouses. We continuously monitor worldwide supply and cost trends of these commodities so we can act quickly to obtain ingredients and packaging needed for production.

We purchase our dairy raw material requirements, including milk and cheese, from independent third parties such as agricultural cooperatives and independent processors. The prices for milk and other dairy product purchases are substantially influenced by market supply and demand, as well as by government programs. Dairy commodity costs on average were lower in 2009 than in 2008. Significant cost items in our biscuit and grocery products are grains (wheat, corn and soybean oil). Grain costs have experienced significant volatility as a result of burgeoning global demand for food, livestock feed and biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Grain costs on average were relatively flat from 2008 to 2009. The most significant cost item in coffee products is green coffee beans, which are purchased on world markets. Green coffee bean prices are affected by the quality and availability of supply, changes in the value of the U.S. dollar in relation to certain other currencies and consumer demand for coffee products. Green coffee bean costs on average were lower in 2009 than in 2008. A significant cost item in chocolate confectionery products is cocoa, which is purchased on world markets, and the price of which is affected by the quality and availability of supply and changes in the value of the British pound and the U.S. dollar relative to certain other currencies. Cocoa bean and cocoa butter costs on average were higher in 2009 than in 2008.

During 2009, our aggregate commodity costs decreased primarily as a result of lower dairy costs. For 2009, our commodity costs were approximately $150 million lower than 2008, following an increase of approximately $2.0 billion in 2008 compared to 2007. Overall, we expect commodity costs to continue to be volatile in 2010.

 

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Liquidity

We believe that our cash from operations, our existing $4.5 billion revolving credit facility (which supports our commercial paper program) and our authorized long-term financing will provide sufficient liquidity to meet our working capital needs, planned capital expenditures, future contractual obligations and payment of our anticipated quarterly dividends. We continue to utilize our commercial paper program and primarily uncommitted international credit lines for daily funding requirements. We also use short-term intercompany loans from foreign subsidiaries to improve financial flexibility. Overall, we do not expect any negative effects to our funding sources that would have a material effect on our liquidity.

Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities:

Operating activities provided net cash of $5.1 billion in 2009, $4.1 billion in 2008 and $3.6 billion in 2007. The increase in operating cash flows in 2009 primarily related to working capital improvements over the prior year (primarily due to improved inventory positions, partially offset by higher interest payments, principally due to the first annual payment on our euro notes) and higher earnings. The increase in operating cash flows was partially offset by higher pension contributions, driven by total voluntary contributions of $400 million that we made to our U.S. pension plans in May and December 2009.

Operating cash flows increased in 2008 from 2007 primarily due to increased earnings and working capital improvements (mainly from lower income tax payments and lower inventory levels), partially offset by increased interest paid. The increase in operating cash flows was partially offset by a $305 million tax transfer from Altria in 2007 for the federal tax contingencies held by them, less the impact of federal reserves reversed due to the adoption of new guidance which addressed accounting for the uncertainty in income taxes. The transfer from Altria was reflected as a component of the change in other current assets within the net cash provided by operating activities section of the consolidated statement of cash flows.

We anticipate making U.S. pension contributions of approximately $40 million in 2010 and non-U.S. pension contributions of approximately $200 million in 2010. We expect to fund these contributions from operations. Our estimated pension contributions do not include anticipated contributions for our newly acquired Cadbury business. We will update this figure in future filings to reflect these anticipated contributions.

Net Cash Used in Investing Activities:

One element of our growth strategy is to strengthen our brand portfolios and / or expand our geographic reach through disciplined programs of selective acquisitions and divestitures. We are regularly reviewing potential acquisition candidates and from time to time sell businesses to accelerate the shift in our portfolio toward businesses—whether global, regional or local - that offer us a sustainable competitive advantage. The impact of future acquisitions or divestitures could have a material impact on our cash flows.

Net cash used in investing activities was $1.2 billion in 2009, $1.3 billion in 2008 and $8.4 billion in 2007. The decrease in cash used in investing activities in 2009 primarily related to a $99 million payment made to Groupe Danone S.A. in 2008 to refund excess cash received in the acquisition of LU Biscuit and lower capital expenditures, partially offset by lower proceeds from divestitures. The decrease in cash used in investing activities in 2008 primarily related to lower payments for acquisitions, partially offset by lower proceeds from divestitures and higher capital expenditures.

During 2009, we divested our Balance bar operations in the U.S., a juice operation in Brazil and a plant in Spain and received $41 million in net proceeds. During 2008, we received $153 million in net proceeds on divestitures, primarily related to a Nordic and Baltic snacks operation and four operations in Spain, and we disbursed $56 million for transaction fees related to the split-off of the Post cereals business. Additionally, we paid Groupe Danone S.A. the aforementioned refund in 2008. During 2007, we received net proceeds of $216 million from the divestitures of our flavored water and juice brand assets and related trademarks, our sugar confectionery assets in Romania and related trademarks and our hot cereal assets and trademarks. Additionally, we acquired LU Biscuit for 5.1 billion (approximately $7.6 billion) in cash in 2007.

Capital expenditures, which were funded by operating activities, were $1.3 billion in 2009, $1.4 billion in 2008 and $1.2 billion in 2007. The 2009 capital expenditures were primarily used to modernize manufacturing facilities and

 

44


support new product and productivity initiatives. We expect 2010 capital expenditures to be in line with 2009 expenditures, including capital expenditures required for systems’ investments. We expect to fund these expenditures from operations. As this disclosure was made as of December 31, 2009, it does not reflect the impacts of our recent acquisition and divestiture activity.

Net Cash (Used in) / Provided by Financing Activities:

Net cash used in financing activities was $3.1 billion in 2009 and $2.1 billion during 2008, compared with $5.1 billion provided during 2007. The net cash used in financing activities in 2009 primarily related to $1.7 billion in dividend payments, $950 million in repayments of long-term debt securities and $344 million in net commercial paper repayments. Additionally, other cash used in financing activities in 2009 included $69 million in costs related to our bridge facility agreement dated November 9, 2009 (the “Cadbury Bridge Facility”). The net cash used in financing activities in 2008 primarily related to $5.9 billion in payments made on the bridge facility used to fund our LU Biscuit acquisition, $1.7 billion in dividend payments, $777 million in Common Stock share repurchases and $795 million in repayments of long-term debt securities, primarily related to debt that matured on October 1, 2008, partially offset by $6.9 billion in proceeds from our long-term debt offerings. The net cash provided by financing activities in 2007 was primarily due to $6.4 billion in proceeds from long-term debt offerings and net outstanding borrowings of $5.5 billion under the bridge facility used to fund our LU Biscuit acquisition, partially offset by $3.7 billion in Common Stock share repurchases, $1.6 billion in dividend payments and $1.4 billion in repayments of long-term debt securities that matured.

In August 2010, $500 million of our long-term debt matures. We expect to fund the repayment with cash from operations or short-term borrowings. As this disclosure was made as of December 31, 2009, it does not reflect the impacts of our recent acquisition and divestiture activity.

Borrowing Arrangements:

On November 30, 2009, we entered into a revolving credit agreement for a $4.5 billion three-year senior unsecured revolving credit facility. The agreement replaced our former revolving credit agreement, which was terminated upon the signing of the new agreement. We intend to use the revolving credit facility for general corporate purposes, including for working capital purposes, and to support our commercial paper issuances. No amounts have been drawn on the facility.

The revolving credit agreement requires us to maintain a minimum total shareholders’ equity, excluding accumulated other comprehensive earnings / (losses), of at least $23.0 billion. Upon the completion of the Cadbury acquisition this covenant will increase by 75% of any increase in our total shareholders’ equity as a direct result of a) our issuance of certain types of equity securities to finance the acquisition; or b) our refinancing certain indebtedness. At December 31, 2009, our total shareholders’ equity, excluding accumulated other comprehensive earnings / (losses), was $29.8 billion. We expect to continue to meet this covenant. The revolving credit agreement also contains customary representations, covenants and events of default. However, the revolving credit facility has no other financial covenants, credit rating triggers or provisions that could require us to post collateral as security.

In addition to the above, some of our international subsidiaries maintain primarily uncommitted credit lines to meet short-term working capital needs. Collectively, these credit lines amounted to $1.5 billion at December 31, 2009. Borrowings on these lines amounted to $191 million at December 31, 2009 and $291 million at December 31, 2008.

The Cadbury Bridge Facility is a £5.5 billion (approximately $8.9 billion) 364-day senior unsecured facility. On January 18, 2010, we amended the agreement to increase the Cadbury Bridge Facility to an aggregate of £7.1 billion. On February 11, 2010, after the issuance of $9.5 billion of senior unsecured notes, we amended the agreement again to decrease the Cadbury Bridge Facility to an aggregate of £1.3 billion. We expect to use borrowings under the Cadbury Bridge Facility and proceeds from other financing sources to finance the Cadbury acquisition and to refinance certain indebtedness of Cadbury and its subsidiaries. With certain restrictions, borrowings under the Cadbury Bridge Facility are also available for our general corporate purposes.

The Cadbury Bridge Facility agreement includes the same minimum shareholders’ equity requirement as in our $4.5 billion revolving credit agreement. In addition, in the event that our long-term senior unsecured indebtedness is rated below investment grade by either Moody’s or Standard & Poor’s, the Cadbury Bridge Facility agreement requires us to maintain a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of not more than 4.25 to 1.00. At December 31, 2009, we continued

 

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to maintain our investment grade debt rating, and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was 2.64. The Cadbury Bridge Facility agreement also contains customary representations, covenants and events of default and requires the prepayment of advances and / or the permanent reduction of commitments under the facility with the net cash proceeds received from certain disposals, debt issuances and equity capital markets transactions. No amounts were drawn on the facility at December 31, 2009.

Subject to market conditions, we expect to refinance or reduce advances under the Cadbury Bridge Facility from proceeds of alternative financing sources.

Debt:

Our total debt was $19.0 billion at December 31, 2009 and $20.3 billion at December 31, 2008. Our debt-to-capitalization ratio was 0.42 at December 31, 2009 and 0.48 at December 31, 2008. At December 31, 2009, the weighted-average term of our outstanding long-term debt was 8.4 years.

On February 8, 2010, we issued $9.5 billion of senior unsecured notes at a weighted-average effective rate of 5.364% and are using the net proceeds ($9,379 million) to finance the Cadbury acquisition and for general corporate purposes. After the issuance of the $9.5 billion of senior unsecured notes, the weighted-average term of our outstanding long-term debt was 10.5 years.

On September 3, 2009, we redeemed our November 2011, 7% $200 million debenture at par value. Upon redemption, we recorded a loss of $14 million within interest and other expense, net which represented the write-off of the remaining discount. On November 12, 2009, we repaid $750 million in notes, and on October 1, 2008, we repaid $700 million in notes. These repayments were primarily financed from commercial paper issuances.

On December 19, 2008, we issued $500 million of senior unsecured notes; on May 22, 2008, we issued $2.0 billion of senior unsecured notes; and on March 20, 2008, we issued 2.85 billion (approximately $4.5 billion) of senior unsecured notes. We used the net proceeds from these issuances ($498 million in December, $1,967 million in May and approximately $4,470 million in March) for general corporate purposes, including the repayment of borrowings under the bridge facility used to fund our LU Biscuit acquisition and other short-term borrowings.

The notes from all above issuances include covenants that restrict our ability to incur debt secured by liens above a certain threshold. We are also required to offer to purchase these notes at a price equal to 101% of the aggregate principal amount, plus accrued and unpaid interest to the date of repurchase, if we experience both of the following:

 

  (i) a “change of control” triggering event, and
  (ii) a downgrade of these notes below an investment grade rating by each of Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch within a specified period.

We expect to continue to comply with our long-term debt covenants. Refer to Note 7, Debt and Borrowing Arrangements, for further details of these debt offerings.

From time to time we refinance long-term and short-term debt. The nature and amount of our long-term and short-term debt and the proportionate amount of each varies as a result of future business requirements, market conditions and other factors. We have an automatic shelf registration on Form S-3 on file with the SEC. As a well-known seasoned issuer, we are able to register new debt securities in amounts authorized by our Board of Directors through December 2010. On October 4, 2007 our Board of Directors authorized $5.0 billion in general long-term financing, which was in addition to the 5.3 billion authorized for the LU Biscuit acquisition and the £7.1 billion authorized for the Cadbury acquisition. At December 31, 2009, we had approximately $3.0 billion remaining in general long-term financing authority and £7.1 billion (approximately $11.5 billion) remaining in Cadbury financing authority from our Board of Directors.

 

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Debt Ratings:

At February 16, 2010, our debt ratings by major credit rating agencies were:

 

             Short term    Long term                    
 

Moody’s

     P-2      Baa2            
 

Standard & Poor’s

     A-2      BBB-            
 

Fitch

     F3      BBB-            

 

Our debt ratings were downgraded due to the increased level of our indebtedness incurred in connection with our acquisition of Cadbury. On February 2, 2010, Moody’s affirmed our short-term debt rating of P-2 and our long-term debt rating Baa2, and revised the outlook from stable to negative. On February 2, 2010, Standard & Poor’s affirmed our short-term debt rating of A-2 and downgraded our long-term debt rating from BBB+ to BBB-, with a positive outlook. On January 20, 2010, Fitch downgraded our short-term debt rating from F2 to F3 and downgraded our long-term debt rating from BBB to BBB-, with a stable outlook.

 

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements and Aggregate Contractual Obligations

 

We have no off-balance sheet arrangements other than the guarantees and contractual obligations that are discussed below.

 

Guarantees:

As discussed in Note 13, Commitments and Contingencies, we have third-party guarantees primarily covering the long-term obligations of our vendors. As part of those transactions, we guarantee that third parties will make contractual payments or achieve performance measures. At December 31, 2009, the carrying amount of our third-party guarantees on our consolidated balance sheet and the maximum potential payments under these guarantees was $29 million. Substantially all of these guarantees expire at various times through 2018.

 

In addition, at December 31, 2009, we were contingently liable for $274 million of guarantees related to our own performance. These include letters of credit related to dairy commodity purchases and guarantees related to the payment of custom duties and taxes, and other letters of credit.

 

Guarantees do not have, and we do not expect them to have, a material effect on our liquidity.

 

Aggregate Contractual Obligations:

The following table summarizes our contractual obligations at December 31, 2009, and does not reflect the impacts of our recent acquisition and divestiture activity.

 

             Payments Due     
             Total    2010    2011-12    2013-14    2015 and
Thereafter
    
                       (in millions)               
 

Long-term debt (1)

   $       18,536    $ 501    $ 6,366    $ 2,051    $ 9,618   
 

Interest expense (2)

     10,598              1,132              2,073              1,364              6,029   
 

Capital leases (3)

     84      16      26      13      29   
 

Operating leases (4)

     1,125      306      428      179      212   
 

Purchase obligations: (5)

                 
 

Inventory and production costs

     5,819      4,465      1,079      257      18   
 

Other

     1,281      863      278      137      3   
                                         
         7,100      5,328      1,357      394      21   
 

Other long term liabilities (6)

     2,296      280      474      454      1,088   
                                         
       $ 39,739    $ 7,563    $ 10,724    $ 4,455    $ 16,997   
                                         
  (1)   Amounts represent the expected cash payments of our long-term debt and do not include unamortized bond premiums or discounts.
  (2)   Amounts represent the expected cash payments of our interest expense on our long-term debt. Interest calculated on our variable-rate debt was forecasted using a LIBOR rate forward curve analysis as of December 31, 2009. Interest calculated on our euro notes was forecasted using the euro to U.S. dollar exchange rate as of December 31, 2009. An insignificant amount of interest expense was excluded from the table for a portion of our foreign debt due to the complexities involved in forecasting expected interest payments.

 

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  (3) Amounts represent the expected cash payments of our capital leases, including the expected cash payments of interest expense of approximately $18 million on our capital leases.
  (4) Operating leases represent the minimum rental commitments under non-cancelable operating leases.
  (5) Purchase obligations for inventory and production costs (such as raw materials, indirect materials and supplies, packaging, co-manufacturing arrangements, storage and distribution) are commitments for projected needs to be utilized in the normal course of business. Other purchase obligations include commitments for marketing, advertising, capital expenditures, information technology and professional services. Arrangements are considered purchase obligations if a contract specifies all significant terms, including fixed or minimum quantities to be purchased, a pricing structure and approximate timing of the transaction. Most arrangements are cancelable without a significant penalty and with short notice (usually 30 days). Any amounts reflected on the consolidated balance sheet as accounts payable and accrued liabilities are excluded from the table above.
  (6) Other long-term liabilities primarily consist of estimated future benefit payments for our postretirement health care plans through December 31, 2019 of approximately $2,180 million. We are unable to reliably estimate the timing of the payments beyond 2019; as such, they are excluded from the above table. In addition, the following long-term liabilities included on the consolidated balance sheet are excluded from the table above: accrued pension costs, income taxes, insurance accruals and other accruals. We are unable to reliably estimate the timing of the payments (or contributions beyond 2010, in the case of accrued pension costs) for these items. We currently expect to make approximately $240 million in contributions to our pension plans in 2010. We also expect that our net pension cost will increase by approximately $50 million to approximately $440 million in 2010. As of December 31, 2009, our total liability for income taxes, including uncertain tax positions and associated accrued interest and penalties, was $1.2 billion. We expect to pay approximately $239 million in the next 12 months. During 2009, we reached an agreement with the IRS on specific matters related to years 2000 through 2003. Our returns for those years are still under examination, and the IRS recently began its examination of years 2004 through 2006. We are not able to reasonably estimate the timing of future cash flows beyond 12 months due to uncertainties in the timing of these and other tax audit outcomes.

Equity and Dividends

Stock Repurchases:

Our Board of Directors authorized the following Common Stock repurchase programs. Our $5.0 billion share repurchase authority expired on March 30, 2009. We did not repurchase any shares in 2009.

 

   

Share Repurchase Program
Authorized by the Board of Directors

   $5.0 billion    $2.0 billion     
 

Authorized / completed period for repurchase

   April 2007 -
March 2009
   March 2006 -
March 2007
  
 

Aggregate cost of shares repurchased in 2008

   $777 million      
 

(millions of shares)

   (25.3 shares)      
 

Aggregate cost of shares repurchased in 2007

   $3.5 billion    $140 million   
 

(millions of shares)

   (105.6 shares)    (4.5 shares)   
 

Aggregate cost of shares repurchased life-to-date under program

   $4.3 billion    $1.1 billion   
 

(millions of shares)

   (130.9 shares)    (34.7 shares)   

In total, we repurchased 25.3 million shares for $777 million in 2008 and 110.1 million shares for $3,640 million in 2007 under these programs. We made these repurchases of our Common Stock in open market transactions.

In March 2007, we repurchased 1.4 million additional shares of our Common Stock from Altria at a cost of $46.5 million. We paid $32.085 per share, which was the average of the high and the low price of Kraft Foods Common Stock as reported on the NYSE on March 1, 2007. This repurchase was in accordance with our spin-off agreement with Altria.

Stock Plans:

At our 2009 annual meeting, our shareholders approved the Kraft Foods Inc. Amended and Restated 2005 Performance Incentive Plan (the “2005 Plan”). The 2005 Plan includes, among other provisions, a limit on the number of shares that may be granted, vesting restrictions and a prohibition on stock option repricing. Under the amended plan, we are authorized to issue a maximum of 168.0 million shares of our Common Stock. As of the effective date of the amendment, there were 92.1 million shares available to be granted under the 2005 Plan, of which no more than 27.5 million shares may be awarded as restricted or deferred stock.

In 2008, we changed our annual and long-term incentive compensation programs to further align them with shareholder returns. Under the annual equity program, we now grant equity in the form of both restricted or deferred stock and stock options. The restricted or deferred stock continues to vest 100% after three years, and the stock

 

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options vest in three annual installments beginning on the first anniversary of the grant date. Additionally, we changed our long-term incentive plan from a cash-based program to a share-based program. These shares vest based on varying performance, market and service conditions. The unvested long-term incentive plan shares have no voting rights and do not pay dividends.

In January 2009, we granted 1.5 million shares of stock in connection with our long-term incentive plan. The market value per share was $27.00 on the date of grant. In February 2009, as part of our annual equity program, we issued 4.1 million shares of restricted and deferred stock to eligible employees. The market value per restricted or deferred share was $23.64 on the date of grant. Also, as part of our annual equity program, we granted 16.3 million stock options to eligible employees at an exercise price of $23.64.

We also issued 0.2 million off-cycle shares of restricted and deferred stock during 2009. The weighted-average market value per restricted or deferred share was $25.55 on the date of grant. In aggregate, we issued 5.8 million restricted and deferred shares during 2009.

At December 31, 2009, the number of shares to be issued upon exercise of outstanding stock options, vesting of non-U.S. deferred shares and vesting of long-term incentive plan shares was 52.8 million or 3.6% of total shares outstanding.

In January 2008, we granted 1.4 million shares of stock in connection with our long-term incentive plan. The market value per share was $32.26 on the date of grant. In February 2008, as part of our annual equity program, we issued 3.4 million shares of restricted and deferred stock to eligible employees. The market value per restricted or deferred share was $29.49 on the date of grant. Also, as part of our annual equity program, we granted 13.5 million stock options to eligible employees at an exercise price of $29.49.

In addition, we issued 0.2 million off-cycle shares of restricted and deferred stock during 2008. The weighted-average market value per restricted or deferred share was $30.38 on the date of grant. In aggregate, we issued 5.0 million restricted and deferred shares during 2008. We also granted 0.1 million off-cycle stock options during 2008 at an exercise price of $30.78. In aggregate, we granted 13.6 million stock options during 2008.

Our Board of Directors approved a stock option grant to our Chief Executive Officer on May 3, 2007, to recognize her election as our Chairman. She received 300,000 stock options, which vest under varying market and service conditions and expire ten years after the grant date.

In January 2007, we issued 5.2 million shares of restricted and deferred stock to eligible employees as part of our annual equity program. The market value per restricted or deferred share was $34.655 on the date of grant. Additionally, we issued 1.0 million off-cycle shares of restricted and deferred stock during 2007. The weighted-average market value per restricted or deferred share was $34.085 on the date of grant. The total number of restricted and deferred shares issued in 2007 was 9.2 million, including those issued as a result of our spin-off from Altria (discussed below).

Upon our spin-off, Altria stock awards were modified through the issuance of Kraft Foods stock awards, and accordingly, the Altria stock awards were split into two instruments. Holders of Altria stock options received: 1) a new Kraft Foods option to acquire shares of Kraft Foods Common Stock; and 2) an adjusted Altria stock option for the same number of shares of Altria common stock previously held, but with a proportionally reduced exercise price. For each employee stock option outstanding, the aggregate intrinsic value immediately after our spin-off from Altria was not greater than the aggregate intrinsic value immediately prior to it. Holders of Altria restricted stock or stock rights awarded before January 31, 2007, retained their existing awards and received restricted stock or stock rights in Kraft Foods Common Stock. Recipients of Altria restricted stock or stock rights awarded on or after January 31, 2007, did not receive Kraft Foods restricted stock or stock rights because Altria had announced the spin-off at that time. We reimbursed Altria $179 million for net settlement of the employee stock awards. We determined the fair value of the stock options using the Black-Scholes option valuation model, and adjusted the fair value of the restricted stock and stock rights by the value of projected forfeitures.

Based upon the number of Altria stock awards outstanding at the time of our spin-off, we granted stock options for 24.2 million shares of Common Stock at a weighted-average price of $15.75. The options expire between 2007 and

 

49


2012. In addition, we issued 3.0 million shares of restricted stock and stock rights. The market value per restricted share or right was $31.66 on the date of grant. Restrictions on the majority of these restricted shares and stock rights lapsed in either the first quarter of 2008 or 2009.

Dividends:

We paid dividends of $1,712 million in 2009, $1,663 million in 2008 and $1,638 million in 2007. The increases of 2.9% in 2009 and 1.5% in 2008 reflect higher dividend rates, partially offset by fewer shares outstanding resulting from the split-off of the Post cereals business and share repurchases. The present annualized dividend rate is $1.16 per common share. The declaration of dividends is subject to the discretion of our Board of Directors and depends on various factors, including our net earnings, financial condition, cash requirements, future prospects and other factors that our Board of Directors deems relevant to its analysis and decision making.

2010 Outlook

We expect the strong operating and financial momentum of our base business to carry forward into coming years. In the near term, we continue to target organic net revenue growth of 4 percent or more and the high end of our 7 to 9 percent long-term EPS growth objective on our base business.

We expect to deliver this performance while:

 

   

investing incrementally in product quality, marketing and innovation;

   

raising productivity as a percentage of cost of goods sold to greater than 4 percent by 2011;

   

leveraging overhead costs by reducing overhead as a percentage of net revenue to approximately 12.5 percent by 2011; and

   

restoring operating income margins to industry benchmarks in the mid-teens by 2011.

In addition, our consolidated results will include Cadbury from February 2, 2010, onwards. The combination of Kraft Foods and Cadbury is expected to provide the potential for meaningful revenue synergies over time from investments in distribution, marketing and product development. As a result, the combined company is targeting long-term organic net revenue growth of 5 percent or more.

Opportunities for significant synergies from the combination have also been identified. On a combined basis, we continue to expect that pre-tax cost savings of at least $675 million annually can be realized by the end of 2012. Total one-time implementation cash costs of approximately $1.3 billion are expected to be incurred through the end of 2012.

On a combined basis, we are targeting accretion to earnings per share in 2011 of approximately $0.05 on a cash basis, which excludes one-time expenses to achieve cost savings, expenses related to the transaction and the impact of incremental non-cash items such as the amortization of intangibles related to the acquisition. Over the long-term, the combined company is targeting EPS growth of 9 to 11 percent.

Our results will also be affected by the sale of the assets of our Frozen Pizza business, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2010. We also expect earnings to be reduced by approximately $0.05 per diluted share on an annual basis as a result of the Frozen Pizza business transaction. This assumes the proceeds will be used for a combination of debt reduction and share repurchases.

New Accounting Standards

See Note 1, Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, to the consolidated financial statements for a discussion of new accounting standards.

Contingencies

See Note 13, Commitments and Contingencies, to the consolidated financial statements and Part I Item 3. Legal Proceedings for a discussion of contingencies.

 

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Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We use the non-U.S. GAAP financial measure “organic net revenues” and corresponding growth ratios. The difference between “organic net revenues” and “net revenues,” which is the most comparable U.S. GAAP financial measure, is that organic net revenues excludes the impact of acquisitions, divestitures and currency. Organic net revenues is used by our management to budget, make operating and strategic decisions and evaluate our performance. We have disclosed this measure so that you have the same financial data that management uses with the intention of assisting you in making comparisons to our historical operating results and analyzing our underlying performance. Our management believes that organic net revenues better reflect the underlying growth from the ongoing activities of our business and provide improved comparability of results because they exclude the impact of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, which are not under our control, and also exclude the one-time impacts of acquisitions and divestitures on net revenues. The limitation of this measure is that it excludes items that have an impact on net revenues. The best way that this limitation can be addressed is by using organic net revenues in combination with our U.S. GAAP reported net revenues. Our management believes that the presentation of this non-U.S. GAAP financial measure, when considered together with our U.S. GAAP financial measures and the reconciliations to the corresponding U.S. GAAP financial measures, provides you with a more complete understanding of the factors and trends affecting Kraft Foods than could be obtained absent these disclosures. Because organic net revenues calculations may vary among other companies, the organic net revenues figures presented in the Consolidated Results of Operations section may not be comparable with similarly titled measures of other companies. Organic net revenues are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for U.S. GAAP financial measures. You should carefully evaluate the following table reconciling U.S. GAAP reported net revenues to organic net revenues.

 

         2009     2008     $ Change     % Change  
         (in millions)              
 

Organic net revenues

   $ 42,210      $ 41,577      $ 633      1.5%   
 

Impact of divestitures

     73        355        (282   (0.7)pp   
 

Unfavorable foreign currency

     (1,897     -        (1,897   (4.5)pp   
                                
 

Reported net revenues

   $ 40,386      $ 41,932      $ (1,546   (3.7%
                                
         2008     2007     $Change     % Change  
         (in millions)              
 

Organic net revenues

   $ 37,818      $ 35,424      $ 2,394      6.8%   
 

Impact of divestitures

     230        434        (204   (0.8)pp   
 

Favorable foreign currency

     711        -        711      2.0pp   
 

2007 LU Biscuit acquisition

     3,173        -        3,173      8.9pp   
                                
 

Reported net revenues

   $        41,932      $        35,858      $          6,074                16.9%   
                                

In addition, we use the non-U.S. GAAP financial measure “free cash flow.” The difference between “free cash flow” and “net cash provided by operating activities,” which is the most comparable U.S. GAAP financial measure, is that free cash flow reflects the impact of capital expenditures. The limitation of this measure is that it includes items that do not have an impact on our cash flow provided by operating activities. The best way that this limitation can be addressed is by using free cash flow in combination with our U.S. GAAP reported net cash provided by operating activities.

Free cash flow is an internal, supplemental measure of our performance. Our management uses free cash flow as the primary cash flow metric in the budgeting and forecasting processes, as it represents the controllable cash flows from operations. We believe free cash flow shows the financial health of, and how efficiently we are running, the company. We further believe that this non-U.S. GAAP measure provides information useful to both management and investors in gaining an overall understanding of our current financial performance, and that it provides investors with financial information that most closely aligns to our internal measurement processes.

This non-U.S. GAAP measure should not be considered in isolation or as an alternative to cash flows generated by operating, investing or financing activities as a measure of our liquidity. Because free cash flow is not a measurement determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP, and is thus susceptible to varying calculations, free cash flow may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures of other companies.

 

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The table below reconciles reported net cash provided by operating activities to free cash flow for the periods stated.

 

         2009     2008     2007      
         (in millions)      
 

Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities

   $         5,084      $         4,141      $         3,571     
 

Capital Expenditures

     (1,330     (1,367     (1,241  
                            
 

Free cash flow

   $ 3,754      $ 2,774      $ 2,330     
                            

Forward-Looking Statements

This report contains forward-looking statements including how our four priorities will shape our future; our planned sale of our Frozen Pizza business, including regulatory clearances, number of employees who will transfer and expected close; what our strategy is centered on; our investments align with growing consumer interest in convenience products and premium brands; our focus on snacks and confectionary products fits well within our strategy of growth in instant consumption channels; our long-term strategy; our intent to acquire the remaining Cadbury ordinary shares; our accounting for the sale of our Frozen Pizza business as a discontinued operation in the first quarter of 2010; our continuing expectation that the exchange with our shareholders related to the split-off of the Post cereals business was tax-free; expectations about LU biscuits; with regard to our Restructuring Program, our use of cash to pay charges and cumulative annualized savings; in connection with our new operating structure, that we are putting our resources closer to where we make decisions that affect our consumers and customers and our intent to simplify, streamline and increase accountability, with the ultimate goal of generating reliable growth for Kraft Foods; why we disclose implementation charges; our reorganization of our European operations and how we changed the way we work; why we include segment operating income; our expectation regarding completion of our reorganization of Kraft Foods Europe; expected additional charges to complete the integration of the Europe Biscuits business and why we disclose implementation and other non-recurring charges; our expectations regarding how the Venezuelan devaluation will affect our 2010 operating results; our belief that the average cost method of accounting is preferable and will improve our financial reporting; our uncertainty that the three reporting units could potentially require further analysis in the future to determine if a goodwill impairment exists, and the significant certainties, including continued economic uncertainty, volume declines, the negative effect of the recession on restaurant industry and the deteriorating economic environment in Europe that ultimately lead to a recessionary period; our belief that the ultimate resolution of existing environmental remediation actions and our compliance with environmental laws and regulations will not have a material effect on our financial results and our uncertainty related to the potential impact of future compliance efforts and environmental remediation efforts; our belief regarding the assumptions used in recording our plan obligations; with regard to our pension plans, the amount we expect to make in contributions in 2010, the amount we expect our net pension cost to increase, our expectation regarding the amount the pension freeze will lower our annual U.S. pension plan costs and our expectation that the enhanced company contribution to our employee savings plan will not have a significant impact on our 2010 pension plan cost; our expectation for health care trend rates; our anticipated health care cost trend rate assumption; our discount rate model and expected future cash flows of benefit obligations; that the final outcome of our legal proceedings will not materially affect our financial results; our 2010 expected rate of return on plan assets; our intent to rebalance our plan portfolios by mid-2010; that we do not anticipate further changes in the 2010 assumptions for our pension and postretirement health care plans; our risk management program effects; our exposure relating to derivatives to credit and market risk; our expectation that 2010 commodity costs will be volatile; our belief regarding our liquidity; that we do expect any negative effects to our funding sources that would have a material effect on our liquidity; our expectation to fund pension contributions from operations; the element of our growth strategy to strengthen our brand portfolios and / or expand our geographic reach through disciplined programs of selective acquisitions and divestitures; the impact of future acquisitions or divestitures could have a material impact on our cash flows; our expectations regarding 2010 capital expenditures; our expectation to fund the repayment of our long-term debt with cash from operations or short-term borrowings; our intended use of the revolving credit agreement; that we expect to continue to meet the shareholders’ equity covenant; our expectation that we will continue to comply with our long-term debt covenants; that we expect to use borrowings under the Cadbury Bridge Facility and proceeds from other financing sources to finance the Cadbury acquisition and to refinance Cadbury debt; that we expect to refinance or reduce advances under the Cadbury Bridge Facility from proceeds of alternative financing sources; that guarantees do not have, and we do not expect them to have a material effect on our liquidity; our expectations regarding our aggregate contractual obligations; and our 2010 Outlook.

 

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These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and the cautionary statements contained in the “Risk Factors” found in this Annual Report on Form 10-K identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted in any such forward-looking statements. Such factors, include, but are not limited to, continued volatility in commodity costs, pricing actions, increased competition, our ability to differentiate our products from private label products, increased costs of sales, our indebtedness and our ability to pay our indebtedness, unexpected safety or manufacturing issues, Food and Drug Administration or other regulatory actions or delays, unanticipated expenses such as litigation or legal settlement expenses, a shift in our product mix to lower margin offerings, risks from operating globally, our failure to successfully integrate the Cadbury business and tax law changes. We disclaim and do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement in this Form 10-K.

Item 7A.  Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk.

As we operate globally, we use certain financial instruments to manage our foreign currency exchange rate, commodity price and interest rate risks. We monitor and manage these exposures as part of our overall risk management program. Our risk management program focuses on the unpredictability of financial markets and seeks to reduce the potentially adverse effects that the volatility of these markets may have on our operating results. We maintain foreign currency, commodity price and interest rate risk management policies that principally use derivative instruments to reduce significant, unanticipated earnings fluctuations that may arise from volatility in foreign currency exchange rates, commodity prices and interest rates. We also sell commodity futures to unprice future purchase commitments, and we occasionally use related futures to cross-hedge a commodity exposure. We are not a party to leveraged derivatives and, by policy, do not use financial instruments for speculative purposes. Refer to Note 1, Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, and Note 12, Financial Instruments, to the consolidated financial statements for further details of our foreign currency, commodity price and interest rate risk management policies and the types of derivative instruments we use to hedge those exposures.

In October 2008, one of our counterparties, Lehman Brothers Commercial Corporation, filed for bankruptcy. Consequently, we wrote off an insignificant asset related to derivatives held with them. This did not have a significant impact on our foreign currency risk management program.

Value at Risk:

We use a value at risk (“VAR”) computation to estimate: 1) the potential one-day loss in the fair value of our interest rate-sensitive financial instruments; and 2) the potential one-day loss in pre-tax earnings of our foreign currency and commodity price-sensitive derivative financial instruments. We included our debt; short-term investments; foreign currency forwards, swaps and options; and commodity futures, forwards and options in our VAR computation. Anticipated transactions, foreign currency trade payables and receivables, and net investments in foreign subsidiaries, which the abovementioned instruments are intended to hedge, were excluded from the computation.

We made the VAR estimates assuming normal market conditions, using a 95% confidence interval. We used a “variance / co-variance” model to determine the observed interrelationships between movements in interest rates and various currencies. These interrelationships were determined by observing interest rate and forward currency rate movements over the prior quarter for the calculation of VAR amounts at December 31, 2009 and 2008, and over each of the four prior quarters for the calculation of average VAR amounts during each year. The values of foreign currency and commodity options do not change on a one-to-one basis with the underlying currency or commodity, and were valued accordingly in the VAR computation.

 

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As of December 31, 2009, the estimated potential one-day loss in fair value of our interest rate-sensitive instruments, primarily debt, under normal market conditions and the estimated potential one-day loss in pre-tax earnings from our foreign currency and commodity instruments under normal market conditions, as calculated in the VAR model, were (in millions):

 

    Pre-Tax Earnings Impact   Fair Value Impact
      At 12/31/09        Average            High               Low           At 12/31/09        Average            High               Low      

Instruments sensitive to:

               

Interest rates

          $ 123   $ 175   $ 239   $ 114

Foreign currency rates

  $ 8   $ 11   $ 15   $ 8        

Commodity prices

    31     30     36     24        
    Pre-Tax Earnings Impact   Fair Value Impact
    At 12/31/08   Average   High   Low   At 12/31/08   Average   High   Low

Instruments sensitive to:

               

Interest rates

          $         175   $         161   $         216   $         106

Foreign currency rates

  $           19   $           15   $           21   $ 8        

Commodity prices

    43     66     91               43        

This VAR computation is a risk analysis tool designed to statistically estimate the maximum probable daily loss from adverse movements in interest rates, foreign currency rates and commodity prices under normal market conditions. The computation does not represent actual losses in fair value or earnings to be incurred by Kraft Foods, nor does it consider the effect of favorable changes in market rates. We cannot predict actual future movements in such market rates and do not present these VAR results to be indicative of future movements in such market rates or to be representative of any actual impact that future changes in market rates may have on our future financial results.

 

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Item 8.  Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.

Kraft Foods Inc. and Subsidiaries

Consolidated Statements of Earnings

for the years ended December 31,

(in millions of dollars, except per share data)

 

     2009     2008    2007      

Net revenues

   $           40,386      $           41,932    $           35,858     

Cost of sales

     25,786        28,088      23,656     
                         

Gross profit

     14,600        13,844      12,202     

Marketing, administration and research costs

     9,108        8,862      7,587     

Asset impairment and exit costs

     (64     1,024      440     

(Gains) / losses on divestitures, net

     6        92      (14  

Amortization of intangibles

     26        23      13     
                         

Operating income

     5,524        3,843      4,176     

Interest and other expense, net

     1,237        1,240      604     
                         

Earnings from continuing operations before income taxes

     4,287        2,603      3,572     

Provision for income taxes

     1,259        755      1,080     
                         

Earnings from continuing operations

     3,028        1,848      2,492     

Earnings and gain from discontinued operations, net of
income taxes (Note 2)

     -        1,045      232     
                         

Net earnings

     3,028        2,893      2,724     

Noncontrolling interest

     7        9      3     
                         

Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

   $ 3,021      $ 2,884    $ 2,721     
                         

Per share data:

         

Basic earnings per share attributable to Kraft Foods:

         

Continuing operations

   $ 2.04      $ 1.22    $ 1.56     

Discontinued operations

     -        0.70      0.15     
                         

Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

   $ 2.04      $ 1.92    $ 1.71     
                         

Diluted earnings per share attributable to Kraft Foods:

         

Continuing operations

   $ 2.03      $ 1.21    $ 1.56     

Discontinued operations

     -        0.69      0.14     
                         

Net earnings attributable to Kraft Foods

   $ 2.03      $ 1.90    $ 1.70     
                         

Dividends declared

   $ 1.16      $ 1.12    $ 1.04     

See notes to consolidated financial statements.

 

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Kraft Foods Inc. and Subsidiaries

Consolidated Balance Sheets, at December 31,

(in millions of dollars)

 

             2009     2008          
   

ASSETS

        
   

Cash and cash equivalents

   $ 2,101      $ 1,244       
   

Receivables (net of allowances of $121 in 2009 and $129 in 2008)

     5,197        4,704       
   

Inventories, net

     3,775        3,881       
   

Deferred income taxes

     730        804       
   

Other current assets

     651        828       
                        
   

Total current assets

     12,454        11,461       
   

Property, plant and equipment, net

     10,693        9,917       
   

Goodwill

     28,764        27,581       
   

Intangible assets, net

     13,429        12,926       
   

Prepaid pension assets

     115        56       
   

Other assets

     1,259        1,232       
                        
   

TOTAL ASSETS

   $     66,714      $     63,173       
                        
   

LIABILITIES

        
   

Short-term borrowings

   $ 453      $ 897       
   

Current portion of long-term debt

     513        765       
   

Accounts payable

     3,766        3,373       
   

Accrued marketing

     2,181        1,803       
   

Accrued employment costs

     1,175        951       
   

Other current liabilities

     3,403        3,255       
                        
   

Total current liabilities

     11,491        11,044       
   

Long-term debt

     18,024        18,589       
   

Deferred income taxes

     4,508        4,064       
   

Accrued pension costs

     1,765        2,367       
   

Accrued postretirement health care costs

     2,816        2,678       
   

Other liabilities

     2,138        2,075       
                        
   

TOTAL LIABILITIES

     40,742        40,817       
   

Contingencies (Note 13)

        
   

EQUITY

        
   

Common Stock, no par value (1,735,000,000
shares issued in 2009 and 2008)

     -        -       
   

Additional paid-in capital

     23,611        23,563       
   

Retained earnings

     14,636        13,440       
   

Accumulated other comprehensive losses

     (3,955     (5,994    
   

Treasury stock, at cost

     (8,416     (8,714    
                        
   

Total Kraft Foods Shareholders’ Equity

     25,876        22,295       
   

Noncontrolling interest

     96        61       
                        
   

TOTAL EQUITY

     25,972        22,356       
                        
   

TOTAL LIABILITIES AND EQUITY

   $ 66,714      $ 63,173       
                        

See notes to consolidated financial statements.

 

56


Kraft Foods Inc. and Subsidiaries

Consolidated Statements of Equity

(in millions of dollars, except per share data)

 

    Kraft Foods Shareholders’ Equity              
    Common
Stock
    Additional
Paid-in Capital
    Retained
Earnings
    Accumulated
Other
Comprehensive
Earnings/

(Losses)
    Treasury Stock    

Noncontrolling
Interest

    Total
Equity
 

Balances at January 1, 2007

  $                    -      $         23,626      $         11,109      $          (3,069   $          (3,130   $                26      $         28,562   

Comprehensive earnings:

             

Net earnings

    -        -        2,721        -        -        3        2,724   

Other comprehensive earnings, net of
income taxes

    -        -        -        1,234        -        2        1,236