Meats and vegetables do mix, both on a plate and in the boardroom. Hillshire, most known for their Hillshire Farm meats, Jimmy Dean sausages, our favorite Ball Park franks and Sara Lee desserts. The Pinnacle brand is more healthy option sort of producing Vlasic pickles, Wishbone Dressing and probably the most valuable commodity is their Birds Eye frozen vegetables.
The combination with Hillshire is expected to produce $140 million in annual savings from improving the supply chain and consolidating expenses. In a conference call with analysts Hillshire CEO Sean Connolly said “Meats go with vegetables, sandwiches go with pickles.” “We’ve often said we like products that are more than just meat.”
Mr. Connolly the CEO of Hillshire will retain the CEO position at the combined company, which will keep the Hillshire Brands name and remain based in Chicago. He said Pinnacle CEO Bob Gamgort will leave the company upon completion of the deal. The financials of the deal are that Pinnacle shareholders will receive $18 in cash and a half share in Hillshire for each Pinnacle share. The companies said the deal valued Pinnacle at $36.02 a share based on Hillshire’s average closing price before the announcement, representing an 18% premium over Pinnacle’s closing price Friday. Including Pinnacle’s outstanding debt, this puts the deal’s total value at about $6.6 billion. The deal still needs to be voted on and approved by Blackstone who owns 51% of Pinnacle, but they did say that they plan on approving the deal and it is expected to close by September.
What that means for us folks is that, by the time our favorite time of the year comes around, (NFL season) we will get most of our grilling meats and now some healthier sides from one main company. Will that matter to us? Hopefully not as long as the prices just stay low.
