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Swiss food giant Nestle may consider a bid for Britain’s Cadbury to challenge a hostile 9.9 billion-pound bid by Kraft Foods Inc and a potential move by Hershey, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.

Nestle was still weighing its options and could decide against a bid, Bloomberg said, citing two unnamed people with knowledge of the matter.

Nestle declined to comment on Sunday.

Italian chocolate maker Ferrero and U.S.-based Hershey, have teamed up and said on Wednesday they were reviewing a possible offer for Cadbury.

Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore has reported that Hershey executives will go to Italy to hold a definitive meeting with Ferrero in the coming days.

Ferrero was not available for a comment.

Meanwhile, Cadbury’s Chairman Roger Carr told the Sunday Telegraph his group would prefer a merger with U.S. chocolate maker Hershey rather than Kraft. But he added both bids could fail should they not be generous enough.

COMPETITION HEADACHE

Analysts had been viewing Nestle as a potential suitor for Cadbury. But such a deal may face some antitrust hurdles.

Nestle said in October it was likely to exercise its option beginning in January 2010 to sell its remaining 52 percent stake in Alcon, potentially raising up to $28 billion, so it could easily afford big buys fast payday loans.

The Swiss giant has declined to comment on Cadbury so far. It has said it does not plan any big acquisitions this year or next, but will focus on a strategy of “bolt-on” buys.

Due to competition issues, analysts had speculated that the Swiss company might consider a joint offer with U.S.-based Hershey Co, with the U.S. group seeking Cadbury’s chocolate interests and leaving Nestle with the Trident chewing gum business.

But Nestle has been silent since Hershey and Italy’s Ferrero said separately on Wednesday they were considering a bid.

Some market players have suggested Nestle could still help Hershey fund a bid by buying its U.S. license for the KitKat brand, potentially worth around $3 billion to 3.5 billion.

The Cadbury riddle is a difficult one to solve as virtually all players would face antitrust issues if they move, said an M&A expert who declined to be named.

(Writing by Lisa Jucca and Emma Thomasson; additional reporting by Jo Winterbottom in Milan; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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Apple’s lips are sealed about its widely rumored tablet computer, but technology experts are giddy about the device, already exclaiming it will be the gadget to end all gadgets.

Executives at Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) never discuss products that are in the works, so there’s no confirmation that the thing even exists. But rumors are circulating that Steve Jobs and Co. have designed a magazine-sized, touch-screen, hand-held, all-in-one device that is half-iPhone, half-Macintosh computer.

It’s supposedly going to make its debut in the next few months, and you can have it for the low, low price of $600. Or $800. Maybe $1,000. No one’s really sure.

If the rumors are true, the tablet will be able to do basically everything a gadget could possibly do. It’s an e-reader, a gaming device, and a music player. You can watch TV and movies on it and surf the Internet (or so we’ve heard). And it will have thousands of third-party apps available for it … or maybe it will run Mac OS X. That’s all still unknown.

Coolest device … ever? Maybe. Some analysts are channeling their inner-Frodo, saying the Apple tablet will be the one gadget to rule them all.

"This will be the next big thing," said Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC. "Apple is going to wow everybody with the tablet."

Any time Steve Jobs gets on stage, the expectations are incredibly high, but they are especially lofty for the tablet. Analysts and investors are saying that this device could revolutionize the handheld world in the same way the the iPhone changed the smartphone market.

"The tablet will change the game, because Apple will throw down the gauntlet at the competitors, and force them to follow along," DiDio said.

According to DiDio, the tablet will have a 10-inch to 12-inch screen and a high-end graphics card that will enable stunning resolution — even more so than the iPhone and iPod Touch. She said the device will come in several different models that offer varieties of Internet connections, such as Wi-Fi or 3G, perhaps through a contract with AT&T (T, Fortune 500).

Another cool feature will be the Web cam, which business travelers will be able to use for video conferencing on the go, DiDio said.

Some analysts say all of those features will kill other single-function handheld devices, making the Apple tablet the go-to handheld device for computing, Internet browsing, reading, gaming and entertainment low cost payday loans.

"Apple will come out with the tablet and blow everyone away," said Dan Ackerman, senior editor at CNET. "Instead of taking along a Kindle and an iPod, that [tablet] could become the device you carry with you."

The cheaply priced netbook market may also take a hit when the tablet comes out. Apple typically prices their products higher than competitors, because they install top-of-the-line hardware, but DiDio said Apple learned from its mistake of pricing the original iPhone at $599, pricing out many potential customers.

"The Tablet will be awesome, and my guess is that it will be an instant hit for people who loved Kindles and people who want netbooks," said David Wertheimer, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Entertainment Technology Center.

Wertheimer said he finds it hard to comprehend how the tablet will replace all other on-the-go tech products. "But then again, what I can’t imagine, Steve Jobs often can," he added.

…Or the fizzle may fail. Not everyone thinks the Apple tablet will be the gadget to end all gadgets.

"What we’ve found in the past with these multi-function devices is that they’re better for ad-hoc purposes, like quick and dirty tasks," said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with Yankee Group. "They’re not for any prolonged, high-performance use."

For instance, smartphones have cameras for quick snapshots, but when you go on vacation, you’re probably going to want your digital camera to come along with you for high-quality photos.

Kerravala said the same logic applies to the tablet’s other functions, including its e-reading capability: "If you want to sit and read a book, the ergonomics of a device that’s specifically designed for reading are going to be better."

Similarly, only 3% of people whose cell phones can play music say they use their phone as their primary music player, according to a Yankee Group study. Even if it means carrying around two devices, an MP3 player is bound to have a better user experience than a multi-function cell phone.

That doesn’t mean the Apple tablet — if it exists — won’t be cool. But you may want to hang onto your iPod, Kindle, Nintendo DS, portable DVD player and laptop for a while. 

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BNP Paribas, France’s biggest bank by market capitalization, on Tuesday joined the rush to pay back governments for their financial support during the credit crisis.

The bank launched a capital increase for 4.3 billion euros ($6.30 billion) as part of its move to reimburse the French state early on its 5.1 billion euros capital advance.

BNP Paribas said the capital increase would be an underwritten rights issue with preferential subscription rights for ordinary shareholders. It added that the deal would boost its earnings per share (EPS) by around 8.4 percent.

The capital hike was set at 1 new ordinary share for 10 existing shares at a subscription price of 40 euros per share.

The subscription price represents a discount of around 29 percent to BNP’s closing share price of 56.57 euros on Monday.

“I could subscribe to the offer. It’s an attractive price,” said Agilis Gestion fund manager Arnaud Scarpaci. Scarpaci recently sold 2,500 BNP Paribas shares at around 55 euros.

BNP said it would, as of October, reimburse the 5.1 billion euros in non-voting shares subscribed to by the French state on March 31 and will make a payment of 226 million euros, calculated over the seven-month period.

The move, making the most of low rates and recovering share valuations — with the CAC-40 .FCHI blue-chip index breaking the 3,800 points index for the first time since October 2008 — will also free BNP Paribas from the state’s conditions for its financial help, including limits on bonus payments.

At 0726 GMT (3:26 a.m. EDT), BNP shares lead the gainers on the CAC 40 rising 3.2 percent while the DJ Stoxx European bank index .SX7P was up 0.6 percent.

SEEKING FREEDOM FROM GOVERNMENTS

Among European banks, Italy’s Unicredit and Intesa Sanpaolo are set to raise funds in an effort to keep politicians at a distance and take advantage of healthy capital markets.

Britain’s Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland are also considering raising billions from equity raising or asset sales to limit the state’s stake.

Swiss bank UBS chief executive Oswald Gruebel told the Financial Times the bank also wanted to cut ties with the Swiss government by buying its way out of a bad bank deal and aimed to return to health within a year.

“BNP Paribas has increased its loan advances in France by 5.5 billion euros over the last 12 months,” BNP Paribas Chief Executive Baudouin Prot said in a statement.

BNP said the capital increase, combined with new shareholders’ equity resulting from the scrip dividend (0.75 billion euros) and a capital increase reserved for employees (0.26 billion euros), will finance the reimbursement of all the non-voting shares issued on March 31, 2009 to the Societe de Prise de Participation de l’Etat (SPPE) pursuant to the French State’s plan to support the economy. 

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Large Cadbury investors are worried Chief Executive Todd Stitzer may overplay his hand in fending off Kraft’s $10 billion offer, with no white knight in sight to spark a bidding war.

The U.S. firm’s current 745 pence-per share offer was “unacceptable,” shareholders contacted by Reuters said, but a bid of more than 900 pence mentioned by analysts seemed unlikely because of the lack of any rival bidders.

“It’s a bit dangerous to get too greedy because they haven’t got any competitive tension and there is a risk that they fail if they get too aggressive,” said one UK-based top 25 investor in Cadbury, who declined to be named.

“No-one is going to accept the current bid and we believe Kraft will pay more — I am not sure that Kraft would want to pay that much (900 pence). Above 8 pounds would be the killing zone,” he said.

Smaller Kraft shareholders said they expected the company to raise its offer, and that a 10-15 percent increase would be acceptable, raising the bid to around 850 pence.

Stitzer spent Thursday telling a fair trade retail conference about the “principled capitalism” he feared was at risk from over-leveraged dealmakers, according to media reports, though he did not refer directly to Kraft.

He also harked back to Cadbury’s heritage: the company was founded by a family of Quakers who wanted to wean people away from alcohol and make them drink chocolate instead.

The robust public stance came after Stitzer detailed potential benefits from a takeover, with his comments leading to some speculation that Cadbury would see a price of 900 pence as fair and that it was leaving the door ajar to Kraft.

A Cadbury spokesman said after Stitzer’s comments that they were theoretical and did not signal a shift in the company’s position.

Cadbury shares traded up 0.5 percent at 798 pence by 1241 GMT, outpacing a 0.2-percent rise in the FTSE 100. The shares were at 568 pence before the offer was made.

A UK-based top 35 investor in Cadbury said: “The worry for us is that they will overplay their hand and completely scupper a bid and then we will be left with a share price that is rather too high for the ordinary operating business.”

SHAREHOLDER SHIFT

Cadbury is clearly proud of its heritage — its telephone hold music is a nostalgic compendium of advertising jingles — but its ownership has undergone a huge shift over the decades.

It was a family firm for more than a century, and family members still hold stakes, but its main investors are now the large institutions which dominate the corporate landscape, and with an increasingly North American flavor.

Data from Thomson Reuters show the confectioner is largely split between 153 UK investors and 134 from the United States, equating to percentage holdings of 40.5 and 22.6 respectively. 

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Loblaw Cos. Ltd. is kicking off another round of grocery-store price wars, as rival Sobeys announces quarterly results showing it’s making gains on the market leader.

Starting today, Loblaw said its Big Brands event moves into the Ontario market, as well as Atlantic and western Canada. The event is already running in Quebec.

For three weeks, consumers will be able to stock up on popular national brands from Kraft, Pepsi and Nestlé as well as Loblaw’s own President’s Choice products, in some case saving up to 50 per cent off the regular price, the company said.

"We’re committed to making shopping easier and less stressful for our customers, especially during the hectic, back-to-school period," said Craig Hutchison, Loblaw senior vice-president of marketing.

The brand-focused blitz, the third since last fall, comes as Sobeys’s parent Empire Co. reported figures that show it continues to gain market share at a faster pace than its rival.

Sobeys’s sales grew 5.3 per cent to $3.91 billion in the quarter ended Aug. 1, as the company opened and expanded more stores, improved operations and benefited from inflation.

Same-store sales, considered a key measure of retail performance, grew 4 per cent, the company also said, while operating income grew 14.2 per cent to $121.6 million. Empire’s net earnings, including its real estate and other investments, rose 8.3 per cent to $89.7 million.

Sobeys operates 1,300 stores across Canada under its own name, as well as IGA and Price Chopper, its discount format.

Loblaw remains the far larger chain but is growing more slowly. Loblaw sales rose 2.8 per cent to $7.2 billion in its latest quarter, ending June 20. Same-store sales rose 2.5 per cent.

Metro Inc., which operates the former Dominion and A&P chains, said sales grew 4.3 per cent to $3.5 billion in its latest quarter, ending July 4. Same-store sales rose 4.2 per cent. Net earnings jumped 22.5 per cent to $112.6 million.

All three major supermarket chains are being challenged by the entry into fresh food retailing by global discount merchant Wal-Mart Canada Corp.

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U.S. employers cut a fewer-than-expected 216,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate rose to a 26-year high, the government said on Friday in a report showing a still fragile labor market.

The Labor Department said the unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent after dipping to 9.4 percent in July and the decline in payrolls was the smallest in a year. The department revised job losses for June and July to show 49,000 more jobs lost than previously reported.

Analysts had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 225,000 in August and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent.

The labor force increased by 73,000 in August, indicating the return of some jobless workers who had given up looking for work accounting for part of the rise in the unemployment rate.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the economy has shed 6.9 million jobs, the department said. Stubbornly high unemployment is wearing on consumer confidence and crimping domestic demand, pointing to an anemic recovery from the worst slump in 70 years business card. Consumer spending accounts for over two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

However, the August report confirmed the pace of layoffs was easing from early this year, when nearly three quarters of a million jobs were lost in January.

Manufacturing employment fell by 63,000, with a total of 2 million factory jobs lost since the start of the recession. Payrolls in construction industries dropped 65,000 after falling 73,000 in July.

The service-providing sector purged 80,000 workers in August, while the goods-producing industries shed 136,000 positions.

Education and health services continued to add jobs, with payrolls increasing 52,000 in August after rising 21,000 in July. Government employment fell 18,000 after slipping 28,000 in July.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Neil Stempleman)

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DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford said Thursday that it will build more of its popular Focus and Escape models and boost total vehicle production later this year to help dealers restock depleted showrooms.

The automaker needs to keep up with demand for its Focus compact car and Escape crossover, both ranked as top sellers under the Cash for Clunkers program. The company also wants to roll out a reasonable number of cars and trucks following earlier production cuts. That way, dealers won’t run short on hot models in the final months of this year.

Ford Motor Co.’s overall North American vehicle production in the third quarter will be 2 percent higher than it forecast earlier, and 18 percent higher than a year ago. It also plans to boost fourth-quarter output of cars and trucks by 33 percent from a year earlier paydayloan.

Those increases, however, compare with slashed production levels from last year, primarily for pickup trucks and SUVs.

Funding for the Clunkers program is likely to run dry by September, the company said, but the additional vehicles produced in the quarter will go to replenish tight dealer stocks. Vehicles that roll off assembly lines as part of the production boost should reach showrooms by early September.

"That should give us some time to reload before 2010 begins," said George Pipas, Ford’s top sales analyst.

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MONTREAL – Via Rail Canada says it will resume full service across the country late tonight.

The company issued a statement early this morning announcing it had reached an agreement with the union representing its striking locomotive engineers to enter into binding arbitration.

Paul Cote, Via’s president and chief executive officer, says service will resume starting late tonight, with full service on most routes by Monday morning.

Layoffs of other unionized Via employees prompted by the engineer’s strike are also cancelled payday loans online.

The 343 engineers, members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, walked out Friday, paralyzing passenger train service across Canada.

Via also announced on Saturday that the strike was forcing it to lay off hundreds of other workers who maintain its trains and stations.

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NEW YORK — In a sign the financial crisis isn’t over, CIT Group Inc., the No. 1 lender to small and mid-sized U.S. businesses, is scrambling to get additional help from the federal government. CIT got $2.3 billion in bailout cash in December.

A collapse of CIT, whose 1 million clients include big names from the franchisee of Dunkin’ Donuts to retailer Dillard’s Inc., could deal a devastating blow to the economy by cutting off financing just as businesses need it most, analysts warned. That in turn could force thousands of small and medium-sized companies to drastically cut costs or shut down — driving up unemployment and dashing hopes for a swift economic recovery.

"They’d have to lay people off, downsize and maybe shut their doors," independent banking analyst Bert Ely said of CIT’s clients.

"It would hardly be positive for the economic recovery."

Apparel industry insiders say it would be very difficult for rivals to absorb CIT’s clients because other lenders are already under financial strain, leaving many orphaned suppliers potentially without any access to financing online cash advance.

CIT, which in April posted a bigger-than-expected first-quarter loss, has been hit hard by the ongoing credit crisis as investors have shied away from purchasing all but the safest forms of debt, leading to a near disappearance of funding options.

CIT said it has retained the law firm Skadden Arps, a bankruptcy specialist. CIT spokesman Curt Ritter declined to say if Skadden Arps was advising CIT on a bankruptcy filing.

Some analysts think the hiring of the bankruptcy law firm was designed to pressure the government to step in with help. But by rescuing CIT, the Obama administration may have to rethink whether to commit more taxpayer money to other firms that get into trouble or simply let them fail.

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The Ontario Securities Commission has filed securities fraud charges against Weizhen Tang, a Toronto businessman who billed himself as "the Chinese Warren Buffett" and was accused of running a Ponzi scheme.

Yesterday, the province’s stock market watchdog laid a total of 12 charges against Tang and his companies, Oversea Chinese Fund Limited Partnership and Weizhen Tang & Associates.

Tang "will be defending the allegations. He will speak when his time comes during the court process," his lawyer, Calvin Barry, said yesterday.

A hearing is scheduled for June 24 in the Ontario Court of Justice.

The commission alleges that Tang collected more than $40 million from more than 100 investors, including residents of Ontario.

The charges include securities fraud, unregistered trading in securities, illegal distributions of securities and making prohibited undertakings with the intention of effecting trades in securities, which were alleged to have taken place between Jan. 1, 2006, and March 31, 2009. The province’s Securities Act states that no person or company can give written or oral representations on the future value or price of a security free credit report and score.

Each offence carries a maximum fine of $5 million, or a jail sentence of five years less a day, or both.

In March, the OSC slapped Tang and his companies with a court order to freeze assets, as well as a cease trade order.

The OSC said in its release yesterday that it has been working with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in its investigation.

Tang is also facing similar charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC alleges that Tang raised capital from U.S. investors by offering and selling limited partnership interests in WinWin Capital Limited Partnership, a Texas-based company he controls.

The OSC first raised allegations in March that Tang may have been operating a Ponzi scheme worth as much as $60 million (U.S.). Tang reportedly told investors that money from new investors was being used to pay out existing investors.

He also told OSC investigators that the fund lost $15 million in 2007, but he did not disclose the loss to investors.

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