Wednesday - May 29, 2013

bye bye bacon

China to buy Smithfield for $4.72 Billion



All your pork products belong to us!

Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd., China’s biggest pork producer, agreed to acquire Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD) for about $4.72 billion to boost supplies for the nation that’s the biggest consumer of the meat.

Closely held Shuanghui, parent of Henan Shuanghui Investment & Development Co. (000895), will pay $34 a share for the Smithfield, Virginia-based producer, both companies said today in a statement. The offer is 31 percent more than yesterday’s closing share price.

China’s consumption of pork is rising with the expansion of its middle class while there are questions being asked about the safety of the country’s food supply. Smithfield’s livestock unit is the world’s largest hog producer, bringing about 15.8 million of the animals to market a year, according to the company’s website. It owns 460 farms and has contracts with 2,100 others across 12 U.S. states.

The takeover is valued at $7.1 billion including debt, which would make it the largest Chinese takeover of a U.S. company, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The deal is likely to face scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., said two people familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

“On the one hand, pork is not directly an issue of national security, as defense or telecom might be,” Ken Goldman, a New York-based analyst for JPMorgan Chase & Co. who has a hold rating on the shares, said in a report today. “On the other hand, if CFIUS comes to believe that Chinese ownership of the U.S.’s largest hog farmer and pork supplier presents a food supply risk, then it may have a heightened concern.”

Darn shame. Smithfield always made really good bacon and their hams were top notch too, for mass produced agri-business meat.

And thus we have a perfect Chinese solution: their own farmers can’t bring pigs to market without horrible diseases, so now they’re using the money we sent them to take food right off our own plates. So smart. Hey, let’s all run to Walmart and buy some more crap from China, and send even more of our money to the communists.

16 million hogs a year. Yeah, and if any Smithfield stuff does stay on the US market, expect the quality to drop like a rock once foreign management takes over. And of course, when half (whatever) the US hog supply goes oversees, the price of pork here will skyrocket.

All that glorious bacon ... turned into pork fried rice. Sigh.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/29/2013 at 01:50 PM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • Fine-Dining •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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