Hong Kong-based Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. will buy Smithfield Foods Inc. for $4.72 billion, turning the publicly traded company private. Both companies' boards unanimously approved the transaction, and Smithfield CEO assures industry spectators that not much will change. He said,
"This transaction preserves the same old Smithfield, only with more opportunities and new markets and new frontiers. This is not a strategy to import Chinese pork into the United States ... this is exporting America to the world."