DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD) will offer $500 million in senior secured six-year notes as it looks to pay back debt.
The world's largest pork processor and hog producer also said it has begun arranging a new $1 billion asset-backed credit facility to replace its current U.S. revolving credit facility. The new pact will include an option to increase the available credit to $1.3 billion in the future.
It is also negotiating a new $200-million term loan expected to mature in August 2013 to replace a same-sized one due two years earlier.
Smithfield said it will also use the proceeds from the note offering for general corporate purposes.
The company was hurt by the hog-price slide after the H1N1 flu scare erupted in April, as anxiety and bad publicity caused the market to plummet even though the flu can't be caught from eating pork. The company has already cut jobs, closed plants and reduced its herd amid an industrywide softening of once-booming export demand.
The company, which reported its first annual loss in three decades, said last week it expects its results to improve this fiscal year as the battered industry cuts production in order to raise prices.
Smithfield's shares closed Wednesday at $13.04 and haven't traded premarket.
-By Kerry E. Grace, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5089; kerry.grace@dowjones.com