The parent company of one of Lenoir County’s top employers has been sold to a Chinese company.
Chinese meat processor Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. has agreed to buy Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork producer, for about $4.72 billion.
Smithfield employs nearly 600 workers in Kinston, according to plant manager Stu Shepherd. Shepherd, who was unable to comment on the sale, instead directed calls to the company’s vice president of investor relations and corporate communications, Keira Lombardo, who did not return calls to The Free Press. An aide of Lombardo told The Free Press Lombardo had “more than 100 calls to return” about the sale of the company.
Shareholders of Smithfield, the world’s biggest pork producer, will receive $34 per share under terms of the deal announced Wednesday. That is a 31 percent premium to the Smithfield, Va., company’s closing stock price of $25.97 on Tuesday.
Both companies’ boards have unanimously approved the transaction, which still needs approval from Smithfield’s shareholders. The transaction may also be subject to review by the U.S.’s Committee on Foreign Investment.
The companies put the deal’s total value at close to $7.1 billion, including debt. Smithfield Foods Inc. — whose brands include Armour, Farmland and its namesake — has about 138.8 million outstanding shares, according to FactSet.
Smithfield’s second-largest shareholder, Continental Grain Co., has been pushing Smithfield Foods Inc. to consider splitting itself up.
Smithfield’s stock surged $7.23, or 27.8 percent, to $33.20 before the market opened on Wednesday.
Smithfield has a long and storied history in Lenoir County, which includes a $100 million expansion of a new plant in 2006 and the shift of production from a closed Virginia plant to the Kinston plant last November. The company is considered one of Lenoir County’s top corporate citizens — and also one of North Carolina’s, with more than 11,000 employees statewide.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.