Cadbury owner makes bid for Hershey

Shareholders of Hershey Co. got a sweet treat on Thursday.

The chocolate maker’s shares popped 18.3 percent, to $114.81, a record high, after the company received a bid from Mondelez International, a rival candymaker, according to reports.

Mondelez, the maker of Cadbury and Toblerone chocolates, Chips Ahoy and Oreo cookies, and more than a dozen other brands, sent a letter to the Hershey board earlier this month, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Terms of the offer contained in the letter could not be learned.

Hershey is controlled by a trust that controls 81 percent of the voting power.

The offer, it would appear, is aimed at winning over the board as it promises to locate all the combined companies’ chocolate operations in Hershey, Pa., and to rename the company after popular US brand founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1894, the Journal said.

Mondelez’s shares gained 1.7 percent as of 11 a.m., to $43.76.