Smithfield to pay $367M for Farmland business

Pork processing giant Smithfield Foods Inc. said Monday it won the bidding in an auction for bankrupt Farmland Industries Inc.’s pork business.

As part of the agreement, Smithfield will pay $367.4 million in cash for almost all the assets of the Kansas City, Mo., company’s pork division, Farmland Foods. It will also assume $90 million in pension obligations, boosting the combined value of the bid to $457.4 million.

If Smithfield receives U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval later this month, it expects to complete the purchase by early November.

In trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Smithfield shares rose $1.64, or 8.5 percent, to close at $20.85.

Media giant

AOL Time Warner name to change on Thursday

The world’s largest media company officially will drop “AOL” from its name on Thursday, returning to the name “Time Warner Inc.”

The company’s shares also will resume trading under their former ticker symbol of “TWX” Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, instead of the current “AOL.” The company also will change its Web site to www.timewarner.com from www.aoltimewarner.com.

“AOL” was added to the name after American Online merged with Time Warner at the height of the Internet boom in early 2000.

Aviation

Boeing predicts profit

U.S. airplane maker Boeing Co. said Monday it expected to make a full-year 2003 operating profit on deliveries of 280 commercial jets, though airplane production was unlikely to recover until 2005.

Boeing’s main rival, European Airbus, is expected to deliver about 300 jets this year, overtaking Boeing for the first time as the world’s leading supplier.

“Our objective is to be financially successful,” Randolph Baseler, vice president for marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told a news conference in Sweden.

Asked if Boeing would be able to make a profit in 2003 on sales of 280 airplanes, down from 381 in 2002 and 527 in 2001, Baseler said: “Yes … from an operating point of view it will be a profit.”

Baseler also said plans for Boeing’s new 7E7 Dreamliner passenger jet remained on track. The 7E7 is Boeing’s first all-new commercial plane in more than a decade.

Speculation is that a chunk of work on the new plane will be done in Wichita, where Boeing employs about 12,500 people.