Once Unilever had taken the opportunity to robustly reject Kraft's suggestion, the whole exercise became pointless because Kraft's bosses had nowhere else to go. Unilever had said a curt "no thanks" to Kraft's cash-and-shares proposal, which was worth almost £40 per share, and Kraft lacked the financial muscle to raise the bid. The US company's bosses were already valuing Unilever's equity at £113bn against a market value of £94bn for their own company and £69bn of the Unilever offer was in cash. True, the enlarged group could have supported the extra debt. Even so, it would have tripled its debt load to over £100bn. From there, raising the bid would have triggered a process of self-necrosis, as the effect of raising even more debt or equity would have eaten away at the value of Kraft's existing equity.
Besides which, it is not as though, in Unilever, Kraft was going for an enfeebled or bloated beast, which is what its bosses claim to do. Kraft is run by 3G Capital, a New York-based and Brazilian-funded private equity firm, which styles itself as the ultimate cost-cutter - doing it rapidly and relentlessly.