The World around Us. Любинская Н.А. - 15 стр.

improve his workers’ lives. Today, Hershey employs half the town’s 12,000
residents. Many managers, including a former chief executive, are graduates of
the trust’s school.
       Hence the community’s outrage at a possible change of ownership, Penn-
sylvania’s attorney general, Mike Fisher, is capitalizing on local ire and taking
the trust to court. Monty Stover, a 102-year-old former executive who knew
Milton Hershey personally, is typical in his disdain for the planned sale: “Mr.
Hershey would never have considered this proposition. He would have said:
“Gentlemen, you are wasting your time and mine. Goodbye.”
       This means that Hershey will be tricky to integrate for any of its suitors,
believed to include Nestlé, Philip Morris’s Kraft subsidiary and Cadbury-
Schweppes. Kraft may have the edge, not only in being American, but also be-
cause Hershey’s current boss Rick Lenny, used to be a senior executive at Na-
bisco, which Kraft swallowed in 2000. But then again, Nestlé already has a
commercial relationship with Hershey, which distributes its KitKat bar in Amer-
ica. And the Swiss group has already weathered a similar “hostile” takeover in
1988, it bought Rowntree, a British confectionary maker with strong links to its
home town of York.
       In the end, the resistance of the people of Hershey may not be enough to
stop their company being snatched from under their noses. After all, if the taste
of Hershey’s chocolate – which, legend has it, is made with sour milk – is
enough to put off the bidders, what is?
                                                   (The Economist. 2005. August)

A. Comprehension
I. Match the following words from (1–10) with their definitions (a–j).
1.  devout              a. anger, displeasure, annoyance
2.  Mennonites          b. the system of pipes which bring the human
                              waste out
3.  endowment           c. a company which offers itself as a buyer
4.  fiduciary           d. devoted to a religion
5.  intertwine           e. a sum of money given to schools to provide an
                              income
6.  sewerage            f. have an advantage over smth, smbd
7.  ire                 g. be joined and twisted closely
8.  suitor              h. a religious sect known for simplicity of life and
                              rejection of military service
9.  have the edge       i. to survive, to stand, to bear
10. weather             j. Trustful, confident

II.   Say whether the following statements are true or false.
1.    Hershey Trust donated 77% of its capital to Hershey Foods in 1918.
2.    The Trust does not have the right to diversify its portfolio.
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