WSMP to Acquire Pierre Foods' Brand Name and Assets from Tyson

WSMP, Inc. and Tyson Foods, Inc. have signed a definitive asset purchase agreement for WSMP to acquire the core business of Pierre Foods from Tyson.

Terms of the purchase agreement call for WSMP to pay $122 million in cash to Tyson Foods to acquire the brand name and assets of Pierre Foods and to assume its liabilities. The target closing date for the transaction is mid-June, 1998.

Pierre Foods is primarily engaged in producing and distributing packaged, precooked food products to the foodservice industry.

WSMP has worked with Pierre Foods as a co-packer of its sandwich lines for approximately 10 years. The acquisition will provide WSMP vertical integration in the sandwich industry as the Pierre Foods business.

Pierre Foods, which is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, has been a part of Tyson Foods only since Jan. 9, 1998, when Tyson acquired Hudson Foods Inc.

WSMP is comprised of a variety of prepared foods operations and a restaurant division. In its prepared foods operations, WSMP has the capacity to produce more than 4.5 million microwaveable sandwiches per week and it already produces and packages sandwiches under numerous nationally recognized labels.

WSMP plans for Norbert E. Woodhams to continue as president of Pierre Foods when it becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of the North Carolina-based food service company.

In addition to the sandwich and bakery portion of its prepared foods operations, WSMP is one of the nation's largest country ham producers. WSMP's restaurant division owns and operates 36 Texas-style Sagebrush steakhouse restaurants in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. Other restaurant operations include 24 company-owned and 43 franchised restaurants.

Edited by Pam Ahlberg