Summary Box: Pork producer Smithfield to sell its 49 pct stake in top-seller Butterball turkey

Summary Box: Smithfield to sell Butterball stake

PORK, NO TURKEY: The nation’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods, is selling its 49 percent of the Butterball turkey joint venture as it continues focusing on more profitable packaged meat. Smithfield will pay down debt with the estimated $175 million in proceeds from selling out to its partner.

BUTTERBALL: To complete the deal, partner Maxwell Farms then plans to sell a 50 percent stake in the venture to Seaboard Corp., a shipping company and producer of pork, grain and electricity, for $177.5 million in cash. Butterball sells 1 billion pounds annually, or 20 percent of all turkey produced in the U.S.