Smithfield Food Executives to Receive $48M in Retention Bonuses, Bloomberg Reports

According to an article written by Simon Casey of Bloomberg,

executives and other “key” employees are expected to receive $48 million in retention bonuses following the company's acquisition by Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. The CEO of the hog and pork producing company, C. Larry Pope, plans to receive four installments of $8.3 million over the next few years. Most of the senior managers at Smithfield plan to stay on at the company once the $4.7 billion takeover goes through. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the top five execs at Smithfield also expect to receive $85.4 million in stock and share options. Smithfield's executives are cashing in big despite the company's lackluster performance over the past few years. Simon noted in his article that the company has posted negative returns of 18 percent in the past five years through May 28th of this year. This performance was the second worst by any U.S. food company with annual sales of $10 billion or more. Only

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posted worse numbers through the same time period. In light of this, leaders at Shuanghi still see a large investment opportunity in Smithfield as a growing middle class in China boosts pork consumption. The upcoming deal between the two companies is the largest Chinese purchase of any U.S. company in history. Smithfield Foods currently trades at $32.89 and is down 0.03 percent on the day.