The market for new listings reheated somewhat in 2024, but has yet to fully crisp up. China’s WH Group hopes it can help: by relisting US pork producer Smithfield Foods. WH ought to keep its expectations lean.
WH, the world’s biggest pork purveyor, took Virginia-based Smithfield private in 2013. At the time, its $34 a share cash offer valued Smithfield’s equity at $4.7bn and represented a hefty 31 per cent premium over the prior day closing price. Now it is looking to sell up to 20 per cent of the company, and return it to US investors’ portfolios.
Back then, paying top dollars for America’s biggest pork processor might have been justified by expectations that China’s growing middle class — tired of repeated food safety scandals — would stump up for safer American meat products.