Like that ham and bacon? Time for Kosher, dudes. Chinese get OK to buy American pork producer - SMITHFIELD

AP:

China is bringing home some serious American bacon.

Shareholders of Smithfield Foods approved a plan to sell the world's largest pork producer and processor to a Chinese company. 

The Smithfield, Va.-based company said more than 96 percent of the votes cast during a special meeting in Richmond on Tuesday were in favor of Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd.'s $34 per-share offer, or $4.72 billion in cash. 

The deal, which is expected to close on Thursday, will be the largest takeover of a U.S. company by a Chinese firm, valued at about $7.1 billion including debt. Its sale to Hong Kong-based Shuanghui comes at a time of serious food safety problems in China, some of which have involved Shuanghui, which owns food and logistics enterprises and is the largest shareholder of China's biggest meat processor. 

"We will cease to be the company you saw in the past," Smithfield's CEO Larry Pope told shareholders. "This does not mean the company goes away, the company just enters into a new phase and a new era of its life." 

Smithfield's shares rose one cent to $33.99 in morning trading Tuesday, just short of the buyout offer. 

Smithfield Foods, whose brands include Armour, Farmland and its namesake, was founded in 1936 and has grown to annual sales of $13 billion and has about 46,000 employees. 

 Pigs, report to Shenzen on monday