The takeover of US pork giant Smithfield Foods by China’s Shuang-
hui International Holdings (雙匯國際) has received approval from a key US national security review, the two companies announced Friday.
The high-level Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) has approved the US$7.1 billion deal, which would put the Chinese company in control of the world’s largest swine grower and pork processor, they said.
The committee, which operates under the US Treasury, investigates any major foreign purchase of a US business that could be seen as damaging national security.
The clearance was an important hurdle to pass before the takeover goes ahead.
Yet the deal still faces a shareholder challenge. Earlier this week a key investor, Starboard Value, called on other shareholders to oppose the deal, arguing that the company would be worth more if broken up and sold piece-by-piece.
The two companies announced the deal on May 29, with Shuang-
hui — which controls one of China’s largest meat processors — offering US$4.5 billion in cash for the US company, whose name has long been closely identified with US pork products.
Adding the debt Shuanghui will take on, the deal’s overall value increases to US$7.1 billion.
Some politicians expressed concerns about the takeover of the company, given China’s huge demand for pork imports and rising prices in the US market, and concerns of adequate sanitary standards.
Shuanghui has insisted it will keep the company’s US operations and brands, and would uphold safety standards.
“This transaction will create a leading global animal protein enterprise,” Shuanghui chief executive Zhijun Yang (楊志軍) said on Friday. “Shuanghui International and Smithfield have a long and consistent track record of providing customers around the world with high-quality food, and we look forward to moving ahead together as one company.”
Sept. 24 has been set for a special Smithfield shareholders meeting to ratify the deal.
Yet earlier this week, Starboard, which holds 5.7 percent of the company, said it would vote in opposition, and urged others to do so as well. The firm is worth between US$9 billion and US$10.8 billion if broken up, and it had identified potential buyers of various units, Starboard said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained