Friday, August 29, 2014

Tyson completes Hillshire purchase


Tyson Foods Inc. and Hillshire Brands Company are now officially merged, the companies announced Thursday.

The announcement came hard on the heels of a U.S. Justice Department order that Tyson divest a hog-buying business so there would continue to be competition in the market for sows, boars and culls. That satisfied government concerns about the merger.

The combination of Tyson Foods and Hillshire Brands creates a single company with more than $40 billion in annual sales.

The integration of the two companies is expected to generate synergy savings of $225 million in fiscal 2015 and more than $500 million by fiscal 2017.

How big is big enough?