010732 Smithfield Buying Gorges/Quik-To-FixJuly 27, 2001Smithfield, VA - Smithfield Foods Inc., the No. 1 pork producer in the United States, said it would pay $34 million for the assets of bankrupt beef, pork and poultry producer Gorges/Quik-to-Fix Foods Inc. to add to Smithfield's ready-to-eat food offerings. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware approved Smithfield's purchase of substantially all of the assets of privately held Quik-to-Fix, and the transaction is expected to close in July, Smithfield said in a statement. Quik-to-Fix, which has annual sales of $140 million, filed for bankruptcy protection in December. The company makes and markets fully cooked and ready-to- eat products primarily under the Quik-to-Fix and Gorges brands to retail chains and national foodservice distributors. Smithfield lost a bidding war late last year for beef and pork processor IBP Inc. to poultry giant Tyson Foods Inc. Shares of Smithfield Foods were off 45 cents, or 1.1 percent, at $41.45 on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares have outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 index by about 34 percent since the start of the year.
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