UK: BIS Committee report on Kraft's takeover of Cadbury - Government response

The Government's response to the House of Commons BIS Select Committee report Mergers, acquisitions and takeovers: the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft has been published: see here (pdf). This is an interesting and important document setting out, albeit briefly, the (new) Government's position on many governance related matters and highlighting the direction of future policy.

Much clearly rests on the outcome of the Takeover Panel's recent review of takeover regulation (see here, pdf) but the response states that the Government will shortly be consulting on how to improve the quality of narrative reporting, in order to strengthen engagement between quoted companies and their shareholders (this is, presumably, the context in which the Government will say more about its intention to restore the Operating and Financial Review). The manner in which institutional shareholders and their fund managers perform their role as "responsible owners" of UK quoted companies is another area identified for consideration.