Smithfield Foods IPO is a go

SMITHFIELD, VA. — American pork processor Smithfield Foods Inc. has announced the commencement for an underwritten initial public offering (IPO) of 34,800,000 shares of its common stock.

The expected pricing is between $23 and $27 per share. The offering includes 17,400,000 shares of common stock to be sold by the company and 17,400,000 shares of common stock to be sold by the company’s existing shareholder identified in the registration statement. The underwriters of the IPO will be granted a 30-day option to buy up to 5,220,000 additional shares of Smithfield’s common stock at the initial offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. Smithfield will not receive proceeds from the sale of the shares by the selling shareholder.

Smithfield has applied to use the ticker symbol “SFD” to list its shares of common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.

Acting joint lead book-running managers for the proposed offering are Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC. Acting joint book-running managers are Barclays and Citigroup, and BNP PARIBAS, HSBC, Rabo Securities and BTIG are acting book-running.

The proposed offering is being made by means of prospectus only. Copies of the preliminary prospectus related to this offering, when available, may be obtained from Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014; BofA Securities, NC1-022-02-25, 201 North Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC, 28255-0001, Attn: Prospectus Department, by email at dg.prospectus_requests@bofa.com; and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, by telephone: 1-866-471-2526 or by email at Prospectus-ny@ny.email.gs.com.

A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective.