* JBS offering mix of cash and shares for rival
* JBS takeover bids slow after buying spree ended
SAO PAULO, April 23 (Reuters) – Brazil’s JBS, the
world’s largest meat producer, made a bid to buy local meat
packer Grupo Independencia in a cash and stock deal for 268
million reais ($142 million), the company said in a market
filing on Monday.
The non-binding offer would be 135 million reais in JBS
shares valued at 7.91 reais each and another 133 million reais
in cash. JBS would not take on any other financial obligations
in the takeover.
JBS shares on the BM&FBovespa; stock exchange in Sao Paulo
fell 5.9 percent to 7.21 reais in afternoon trade, while the
main blue-chip index Bovespa was trading down 2 percent.
If Independencia accepts the offer, it would mark JBS’s
first large-scale acquisition after a hiatus in recent years.
Independencia has four slaughterhouses, most in the center-west,
and two distribution centers in Sao Paulo state.
JBS rose from near obscurity out of Brazil’s grain-rich
center-west to become the world’s largest meat producer in the
past seven years through a series of major acquisitions,
including U.S. Pilgrim’s Pride, Swift Foods and Smithfield Beef.
See FACTBOX on JBS’s buying spree:
