Pilgrim’s Pride board is reviewing whether to accept the latest takeover offer from Brazilian meat giant JBS.
The US poultry business, which is already majority-owned by JBS, is setting up a “special committee of independent and disinterested directors” to review the latest offer made in August.
In a statement today (9 October), Greeley, Colorado-based Pilgrim’s Pride said its board “will not approve the transaction proposed by JBS without the favourable recommendation of the special committee, and any such transaction is expected to be conditioned on the affirmative vote of a majority of the votes cast by the holders of PPC shares not held by JBS or its affiliates”.
In August, JBS submitted a “non-binding” proposal to the Pilgrim’s Pride board to acquire the company’s remaining shares for $28.49 each.
The Brazilian protein major first took control of Pilgrim’s Pride in 2009, when it bought a 64% stake for $800m after the poultry producer entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the previous year.
JBS owns Pilgrim’s Pride around 82% through its US unit, JBS USA.
Pilgrim’s Pride said today “there can be no assurance that a definitive agreement relating to JBS’s proposal will be entered into by PPC, or that any transaction will be consummated”.
Should the deal go ahead, contingent on the Pilgrim’s Pride board approval, the US company would then be delisted from the Nasdaq exchange.
JBS had sought full ownership of Pilgrim’s Pride in 2021 but withdrew the approach a year later.
In August, JBS had said the acquisition would create a “simplified” organisational structure.
According to the company, the change would remove Pilgrim's Pride's standalone public company costs, leading to “more flexible and efficient” capital allocation across the group.
Pilgrim’s Pride owns brands including Pilgrim’s Chicken, Just Bare, Gold’n Plump and Moy Park.
It supplies markets through production facilities in the US, the UK, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Europe.
Pilgrim’s Europe, which is part of Pilgrim’s Pride, agreed in August to buy UK company Walkers Deli & Sausage Company from Samworth Brothers.
Meanwhile, through its JBS USA unit, the Brazilian meat major has formed a joint venture with Indonesia’s sovereign-wealth fund to “pursue investment opportunities” in protein production, with focus on Indonesia and the wider South East Asia region, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
