Pilgrim’s shares trading after year

Trading on Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. stock began Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange, more than a year after the Texas-based poultry processor was delisted after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.

Brazil-based protein processor JBS SA shareholders officially authorized the company’s purchase of 64 percent of the American poultry processor in a vote closed Monday night.

JBS SA, of Sao Paulo, released a statement Monday that the acquisition was completed, confirmed company spokesman Guilhermo Arriuda on Tuesday.

The vote authorized the sale of $2 billion in U.S. dollars, of convertible bonds in the company’s new United States unit.

The bonds will be exchanged for Brazilian depositary receipts of JBS USA Holdings Inc. if the company sells stock in an initial offering no later than the end of next year, JBS said Tuesday in a regulatory filing. Should the U.S. unit not list equity by then, the bonds will be exchanged for shares of Sao Paulo-based JBS SA by Jan. 31, 2011, the company said.

The debt sale, which will finance the takeovers of Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. and Brazil’s Bertin SA, may help triple JBS’s profit next year, Legg Mason Inc. told Bloomberg News this month. Any dilution from the conversion of the bonds will be more than compensated for by a surge in revenue, said Aquico Wen, who manages the $1 billion Legg Mason Emerging Markets Equity Fund at Esemplia Emerging Markets.

The merged company will rival Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale in size and its offerings of beef, pork and chicken in the United States.

The stockholders vote was the last required action before the Brazilian beef and pork company could buy its share of Pilgrim’s Pride and lift that company out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.

Pilgrim’s Pride filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday that officially announced the end of its bankruptcy tenure.

Trading for new Pilgrim’s Pride stock, under the symbol of “PPC”, opened Tuesday at $9 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock closed at $8.95 after trading between $8.56 and $10.49.

Previous trading on company stock had been halted on Dec. 1, 2008, when Pilgrim’s Pride filed for bankruptcy. It has traded over the counter during the past 13 months under the symbol of “PGPDQ.”

Pilgrim’s Pride will continue operations in the United States under its current name.

In Arkansas, the company employs 1,979 in poultry operations in Batesville and De Queen, a feed mill in Hope and a sales office in Bentonville. It closed plants in El Dorado and Clinton in the past 18 months.

Pilgrim’s Pride employs about 41,000 people in chicken-processing plants and prepared-foods facilities in 12 states, Puerto Rico and Mexico, according to the company’s Web site.

Information for this article was contributed by Paulo Winterstein of Bloomberg News.

Business, Pages 29 on 12/30/2009

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