Thursday, 26 March 2015 01:25
NEW YORK: US stocks opened higher Wednesday buoyed by the proposed mega-merger of HJ Heinz and Kraft Foods, creating North America’s third-largest food and beverage conglomerate.
Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 17.46 points (0.10 percent) at 18,028.60.
The broad-based S&P 500 added 4.44 (0.21 percent) at 2,095.94, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 5.76 (0.12 percent) to 5,000.49.
Kraft surged 32.6 percent to $ 80.99 as Heinz’s owners 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway agreed to pay about $ 10 billion in a special dividend of $ 16.50 per share to Kraft shareholders in the deal, representing a 27 percent premium to Kraft’s closing price on Tuesday.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2015
