EU extends review of planned Kraft, Cadbury deal

BRUSSELS/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. food group Kraft Foods Inc has offered concessions to European Union regulators aimed at tackling concerns that its plan to buy British chocolate maker Cadbury Plc may be anticompetitive.

Kraft said the offered concessions were in a few markets but that the company did not anticipate major divestitures.

"As we've said from the beginning, this combination is highly complementary and we don't expect material divestments to be required in relation to the overall combined business," Kraft spokeswoman Perry Yeatman said.

Kraft made a formal $16.1 billion bid for Cadbury last week. The combined group would be the world's biggest confectionery firm, ahead of privately owned Mars-Wrigley.

Cadbury, which has consistently rejected Kraft's preliminary approaches, is set to respond formally to the U.S. company's offer on December 14.

The deadline for an EU regulatory decision has been pushed back to January 6 from December 14, the European Commission's daily list of mergers and takeovers under review showed on Wednesday, after Kraft submitted remedies.

Cadbury shares were up fractionally at 786 pence on Wednesday and Kraft shares were up 6 cents at $26.72 in premarket electronic trading.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee and Brad Dorfman, editing by Dale Hudson, Dave Zimmerman)