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Smithfield not interested in Sara Lee; Tyson might be interested in something
Story Date: 3/29/2012
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Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 3/29/12
A Smithfield Foods executive slammed the door on the possibility of buying Sara Lee’s meat business and played down the possibility of other acquisitions while a Tyson Foods executive indicated Tyson might be in the market to expand its prepared foods business, both speaking at this week’s J.P. Morgan Global Protein Conference.
“We are not buying Sara Lee(‘s meat business), thank you very much,” Smithfield Chief Financial Officer Bo Manly told investors, according to a report on the conference by J.P. Morgan analyst Ken Goldman.
Manly, who had previously raised the subject of possibly buying that business, went on to say that in general, “We’re not going to do something stupid in terms of an acquisition, it doesn’t make any sense for you as shareholders. And we are not going to invest in something that we don’t think has a return over a relative short term.”
Tyson Foods
Tyson Foods Senior Group Vice President, Poultry and Prepared Foods Donnie King, however, was more upbeat about acquisitions.
“We see an ample opportunity to grow our prepared foods business. We already own the raw materials and we have a strong enough balance sheet to look at building or buying further processing capacity to fill niche markets to fill – to simply give us the ability to convert our raw materials utilizing what resources we have financially in terms of footprints and otherwise and then leverage those relationships that we have with our customers,” said King. “So we got raw material, we got resources and relationships and we see no reason why we don't grow this prepared foods business in a pretty dramatic fashion.”
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