Company
Hormel Makes Its Biggest Deal Ever, Buying Planters for $3.3 billion
Star Tribune
Hormel Foods Corp. agreed to buy Planters nuts for $3.35 billion, the largest acquisition in Hormel’s 130-year history.
The Austin, Minn.-based food company — known for bacon, turkey, Spam and its down-home style of business — has steadily gobbled up smaller protein-centric food brands for the last five years. The Planters brand is easily the most well-known name of those deals.
“We love it,” Hormel Chief Executive Jim Snee said. “We got it at a price that we think is a good deal.”
Kraft Heinz Co. agreed to sell the popular nuts and snack-mix business as it continues to shore up a struggling balance sheet. For Hormel, the deal eclipses its previous record purchase of $850 million for the deli-meat brand Columbus in 2017.
It’s the latest move by Hormel to transition from a commodity meatpacker into a branded food company. At $1 billion in annual sales, the Planters business will expand Hormel’s overall revenue by about 10%.
Hormel first identified Planters as a top acquisition target in 2016, but it didn’t begin conversations with Kraft Heinz in earnest until the start of 2020.
Hormel’s chief financial officer, Jim Sheehan, is known for maintaining a sizable cash pile and being relatively averse to debt. Snee said friends called him Thursday to jokingly ask how he got Sheehan to finally open up the company checkbook.
Hormel Foods Corp. agreed to buy Planters nuts for $3.35 billion, the largest acquisition in Hormel’s 130-year history.
The Austin, Minn.-based food company — known for bacon, turkey, Spam and its down-home style of business — has steadily gobbled up smaller protein-centric food brands for the last five years. The Planters brand is easily the most well-known name of those deals.
“We love it,” Hormel Chief Executive Jim Snee said. “We got it at a price that we think is a good deal.”
Kraft Heinz Co. agreed to sell the popular nuts and snack-mix business as it continues to shore up a struggling balance sheet. For Hormel, the deal eclipses its previous record purchase of $850 million for the deli-meat brand Columbus in 2017.
It’s the latest move by Hormel to transition from a commodity meatpacker into a branded food company. At $1 billion in annual sales, the Planters business will expand Hormel’s overall revenue by about 10%.
Hormel first identified Planters as a top acquisition target in 2016, but it didn’t begin conversations with Kraft Heinz in earnest until the start of 2020.
Hormel’s chief financial officer, Jim Sheehan, is known for maintaining a sizable cash pile and being relatively averse to debt. Snee said friends called him Thursday to jokingly ask how he got Sheehan to finally open up the company checkbook.
“The same financial discipline that had us pass up on other deals is the same financial discipline that told us this was the right deal. We asked the same questions, went through the same process,” Sheehan said. “There was a point that it was just so clear that it was the right deal.”
