Smithfield Foods' Parent Company Pulls IPO.

May 01, 2014

WH Group is the Chinese company that acquired Smithfield Foods.

The WH Group is pulling its initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and delaying pricing due to lack of demand, according to Reuters.

Reuters, citing anonymous sources, said the IPO, initially thought to be worth $5.3 billion, would instead be less than $2 billion.

The IPO share pricing had been slated for Tuesday, and the company had been due to debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange on April 30.

It is said that the WH Group plans to use much of the money raised through its IPO to pay back debt it incurred last year with its $4.9 billion purchase of Smithfield.

Smithfield Foods is a leading pork producer and processing company. The company owns Farmland Foods, which has a pork plant in Crete, Cook's Hams, which operates in Lincoln, and a Margherita sausage plant in Omaha.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.