Buffett Shoots Down Kraft Heinz-Mondelez Speculation

Kraft Heinz apparently will not reunite with the prominent former snack food brands that were spun off as Mondelez five years ago.

Amid a sluggish market for the packaged food sector, analysts speculated that a handful of large food companies — including Kraft Heinz or PepsiCo — could come up with the financing to acquire the owner of the Oreo, Ritz and Triscuits brands.

The speculation increased after the Kraft Heinz's $143 million bid for Unilever fell through in March.

But billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC last week that "I think the answer is no" regarding Kraft Heinz's interest in a bid for Mondelez.

Buffett's investment firm Berkshire Hathaway is the largest stakeholder in Kraft Heinz and, along with Brazilian firm 3G Capital, helped engineer the merger between the two famed companies in 2015; his comments reportedly sent Mondelez's stock price sliding on Wednesday.

Buffett told the network that Kraft Heinz does business with retailers that are increasingly under fire from e-commerce — particularly Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods — and that an increased stable of brands would not interest those retailers as much as their sales potential.

“Having a group of brands doesn’t transition to that much more bargaining power,” Buffett said.