Unilever shares slide

Photo: The Canadian Press

Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever

Shares in Unilever, the owner of brands like Hellman's, Lipton, and Knorr, are down sharply after rival Kraft Heinz withdrew a $143 billion takeover offer.

The companies said Sunday in a joint press release that Kraft Heinz has "amicably" abandoned the offer.

Shares in Unilever slumped 6.5 per cent on Monday to 41.91 euros in Amsterdam, one of the places they're listed. They'd jumped 14 per cent on Friday.

The deal would have combined Kraft Heinz products such as Oscar Mayer, Jell-O and Velveeta with Unilever's stable of brands, which include food as well as other consumer goods like Dove soap and Vaseline. The merged company would have rivaled Nestle as the world's biggest packaged food maker by sales.

Analysts say Kraft Heinz, co-headquartered in Chicago and Pittsburgh, is still in the market for acquisitions. The fact that it bid for all of Unilever and not just its food business indicates that Kraft Heinz is potentially open to acquiring other packaged consumer goods, one analyst said.

Unilever, which has a head office in London and multiple stock listings, rejected the offer on Friday, but despite that, Kraft Heinz said at the time that it was still interested in the deal.