Smithfield Foods is announcing the launch of a secondary public offering of 16 million shares of common stock of the company to be sold by SFDS UK Holdings Limited, the principal shareholder of the company. The selling shareholder also intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 2.4 million additional shares of the company’s common stock at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The company is not selling any shares of common stock in the offering and will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the shares by the selling shareholder, including from any exercise by the underwriters of their option to purchase additional shares.

Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities and Barclays are acting as joint lead book-running managers for the proposed offering.

The proposed offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. Copies of the preliminary prospectus related to this offering, when available, may be obtained for free by visiting EDGAR on the Securities and Exchange Commission website at sec.gov. The preliminary prospectus relating to the proposed offering may also be obtained from Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014; BofA Securities, Inc., NC1-022-02-25, 201 North Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC 28255-0001, Attn: Prospectus Department, by email at dg.prospectus_requests@bofa.com; and Barclays Capital Inc., Attention: Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717.

Source: Smithfield Foods