Kraft viandss Inc. said second-qua...

Kraft viandss Inc. said second-quarter profit jump overed 44 percent after it increased prices onward meats and coffee.

trap income climbed to $682 million, or 41 cent a share, Northfield-based Kraft said, in succession a 3.4 percent gain in receipts to $8.62 billion, reflecting higher prices for Oscar Mayer chilled cuts and coffee in Europe

Chief Executive Roger Deromedi was ousted June 26 after Kraft's income gains and share performance trailed rivals Kellogg Co and General Mills Inc. Successor Irene Rosenfeld will supervise a planned spinoff of the company from Altria cluster Inc.

"You still have, in power a money machine that destitutions a little oiling," said Donald Yacktman, who have charge ofs more than $1 billion, including about 18 million Kraft shares, as chief investment officer of Yacktman Asset Management. "What you'd like to descry is greater strength of their brands forward a worldwide basis."

Shares of Kraft, which is 88 percent be in possession ofed by Altria, rose 51 cent or 17 percent to shut Monday at $30.50.

The stock declined 13 percent subject to Deromedi, who took charge in December 2003 compared with 31 percent sprouting by Kellogg and 8.6 percent product by General Mills.

"There is no question in my mind that Kraft has great brands and talented tribe but we need to procure it growing faster," Rosenfeld said in her first observations to analysts as the strange CEO. A "focus on growing is the biggest opportunity that we have here."

Analysts said Altria might spin facing Kraft by the end of 2006 after the Florida leading Court on July 6 threw without a $145 billion class-action suit by way of Florida smokers that posed the biggest legal hurdle to a breakup of Altria.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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