Kraft Foods is preparing for the second stage of its separation from majority owner Altria Group, a report said on Tuesday.

The second step will likely entail issuing Kraft shares to Altria stockholders, The Wall Street Journal reported, without citing any source, in its column "Heard on the Street".
The offering's size, which the Journal said is estimated at nearly 1.5 billion shares, would dwarf the initial offering in 2001 when Philip Morris Cos, as Altria was then known, sold 280 million shares at US$ 31 each, the newspaper said.
There is also concern that millions of shares from the secondary offering could be dumped back on the market by Altria shareholders, pushing Kraft's stock price lower, it said.
Altria has not set a date for the second-stage sale, the Journal said. Altria chairman and chief executive Louis Camilleri said in April at an annual shareholders' meeting that the company would stick to its own schedule for breaking Kraft off. (pi)