Kraft Heinz Co. (Nasdaq:KHC) has withdrawn its takeover bid for British consumer products giant Unilever (UL), the company announced [Feb 19].

Written by StockNews.com

Kraft had offered some $143 billion to acquire Unilever, which the company quickly rejected as too low. Apparently, Kraft didn’t want the discussions to become public so soon, according to Reuters:

Kraft withdrew its offer because it felt it was too difficult to negotiate the deal following the public disclosure of its bid so early following its approach to Unilever, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations.

To comply with British business regulations, once the information about the deal leaked, Kraft was forced to make its offer publicly available. This led to a loss of negotiating leverage and ultimately likely doomed the deal. Kraft noted in a statement that “interest was made public at an extremely early stage. Our intention was to proceed on a friendly basis, but it was made clear Unilever did not wish to pursue a transaction.”

In a joint statement, the two firms said they “amicably agreed to withdraw its proposal for a combination of the two companies.”

The Financial Times has additional information on the decision:

Two people close to the talks said Warren Buffett and 3G’s Jorge Paulo Lemann, the major Heinz Kraft shareholders, decided on Sunday morning to withdraw the bid after they concluded that a protracted public battle to take over Unilever would have caused more damage than good.

Kraft Heinz Co shares closed at $96.65 on Friday, up $9.37 (+10.74%). Year-to-date, KHC has gained 10.68%, versus a 5.17% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.

KHC currently has a StockNews.com POWR Rating of A (Strong Buy), and is ranked #1 of 62 stocks in the Food Makers category.