As rivals weigh whether to top Kraft Food's £9.9bn (€11bn) offer for Cadbury, they're confronting an unusual situation: Kraft has extracted exclusivity agreements from the banks it is using to finance its bid, leaving contenders with few other banks to choose from.

Kraft, which made a hostile offer for Cadbury on November 9, is being advised by Lazard and has secured a £5.5bn bridge loan from a group of nine banks led by Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and HSBC and including BNP Paribas, Barclays Capital, Royal Bank of Scotland as well as Credit Suisse, Société Générale and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.