Smithfield Foods $200 mln senior notes seen pricing Wednesday

By Paul A. Harris

St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 16 - Smithfield Foods, Inc.'s offering of $200 million senior unsecured notes (Ba2/BB+) will hit the primary market Wednesday afternoon, several market sources told Prospect News. Joint bookrunners are J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs & Co., according to a source. One banker said there was no official price talk out but that unofficial "price guidance is in the area of 8%."

The notes are noncallable, according to a syndicate source.

Jerry Hostetter, chief financial officer of the Smithfield, Va.-based meat processing company, told Prospect News that proceeds from the bond issuance will not be used in the company's $250 million acquisition of Packerland Industries, expected to be completed Oct. 22.

"The acquisition is for common stock," Hostetter said, adding that the bond sale proceeds will be used for routine refinancing.

Separately, Smithfield Foods announced Tuesday that earnings for the second quarter of fiscal 2002 ending October 28 are expected to be "substantially above analysts' expectations and results of a year ago." The company plans to release its earnings on Nov. 20. It said that it expects to report fully diluted earnings for the second quarter of approximately 54 cents per share, compared with 42 cents per share in the same quarter of fiscal 2001. Analysts have projected earnings of around 47 cents per share.

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