Dive Brief:
- Starboard Value LP, a large Smithfield Foods Inc shareholder, plans to vote in favor of the company's acquisition by Shuanghui International, it revealed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
- Starboard owns a 5.7% stake in Smith and had been withholding support while it looked for competing bids.
- Starboard indicated that it is "confident that (Smithfield) could have received value in excess of that available pursuant to the proposed merger, we are not able to offer shareholders an alternative proposal at this time."
Dive Insight:
The $4.7 billion Smithfield-Shuanghui deal could be one of the most important in the food industry this year. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States recently signed off on allowing it go through, considering criticism that allowing a Chinese company to purchase the pork producer could adversely affect the U.S. food supply.