Tasmania's salmon farmer Huon Aquaculture being pursued by Brazilian meat giant
By Christopher Ham and Rebecca Hewett
Posted 6 hours ago, updated 1h ago
Tasmanian salmon giant Huon Aquaculture is set to sell to a Brazilian meat processing company for almost half a billion dollars.
Late Friday, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) revealed the company had entered a deal with JBS, which would see the South American giant acquire 100 per cent of Huon's shares at $3.85 per share, should shareholders approve.
On Friday, Huon shares closed at $2.79.
The deal has been reported as being worth $425 million — but one financial expert said the deal was likely worth up to $550m.
Huon's board of directors said the buyout was in shareholders' best interests, and has recommended they vote in favour of the deal.
Directors, including founders and major shareholders Frances and Peter Bender, said they intend to vote to support the sale.
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Acquiring Huon's stocks will mark JBS's move into aquaculture, but it's the Brazilian multinational's second operation in Tasmania, with the company owning a beef cattle processing unit at Longford.
JBS Australia's president and chief executive officer, Brent Eastwood, said the acquisition of Huon allows the company to further grow its Australian protein business.
More:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-07/huon-aquaculture-sale-to-jbs-meats-recommended/100358262
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This foreign meat company got U.S. tax money. Now it wants to conquer America.
President Trump delivers remarks in support of farmers and ranchers at the White House in May.
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
By
Kimberly Kindy
November 7, 2019 at 5:00 p.m. CST
This story has been updated.Two men in cowboy hats stood behind President Trump in May as he announced a $16 billion agricultural bailout. Trump said the financial relief from his trade war with China would help American farmers, reinforcing an earlier tweet when the president said the funds would help "great Patriot Farmers."
But not all beneficiaries of the taxpayer-funded program are American farmers or patriots. JBS, a Brazilian company that is the largest meat producer in the world, has received $78 million in government pork contracts funded with the bailout funds -- more than any other U.S. pork producer.
JBS's winning hand in securing a quarter of all of the pork bailout contracts is one example of the power a small number of multinational meat companies now hold in the United States. JBS has become a major player in the United States even as it faces price-fixing and other investigations from the federal government.
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A dozen years ago, JBS did not own a single U.S. meat plant. Today, JBS and three other food companies control about 85 percent of beef production. JBS and Tyson Foods control about 40 percent of the poultry market. And JBS and three other companies control nearly 70 percent of the pork market.
JBS and the large multinational meat companies, including Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods and Cargill, use their size and global presence to create efficiencies that enable them to produce a variety of quality foods at a lower price. But many agricultural economists and food marketing analysts say when so few companies control the market, they can drive smaller operators out of business, reducing competition and sometimes raising prices for consumers.
Such consolidation has been condemned by eight Democratic presidential candidates, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) being the most outspoken. She's pledged to break up the larger food and meat companies because the companies can use their "economic power to spend unlimited sums of money electing and manipulating politicians" and because they are "leaving family farmers with fewer choices, thinner margins and less independence."
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/this-foreign-meat-company-got-us-tax-money-now-it-wants-to-conquer-america/2019/11/04/854836ae-eae5-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html
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JBS among meat firms linked to slavery-tainted ranches in Brazil
JBS among meat firms linked to slavery-tainted ranches in Brazil
Source: Reuters
Six meatpackers bought cattle from ranches that used slave labor, Reporter Brasil found
By Fabio Teixeira
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Brazilian meatpackers must clean up their supply chains, labor experts said on Tuesday, after an investigation showed six firms bought cattle from ranches that used slave labor.
Brazil's JBS, one of the world's largest meat processing firms, bought cattle from two ranches that later ended up on Brazil's "dirty list" of companies that employed slave labor, the anti-slavery rights group Reporter Brasil said this week.
JBS said it banned the two firms once they were on the dirty list, but it was unfair to expect JBS to stop working with any ranches facing allegations of slave labor from inspectors as those companies also had the right to defend their actions.
"Reporter Brasil is demanding JBS ... block producers based only on inspections (which) ... would be a disregard for that producer's right of defense before public authorities", JBS told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a statement.
More:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142659715