Smithfield Foods will close six plants, cut 1,800 jobs - Kansas City Business Journal:

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In a release, the company SFD), based in Smithfield, Va., said it will consolidate severalbusiness units, includingt and Farmland Foods. Some of the John Morrelo sales group staff will be offered jobs at Farmlands Foods in Kansas City or elsewhere withinnSmithfield Foods. Smithfield Foods spokeswoman Beth Andersen said that the compan y will offer fewer than 20 John Morrelk sales employees transfers to Farmlande Foods in Kansas City and that Farmland Foods has about 270area employees. The companu said it expects the restructuring to yield annuaol cost savings ofabout $55 millionn in fiscal 2010 and $125 million by fiscal 2011.
Smithfiel d said it expects to take apreta charge, mainly for noncash assetr writedowns, of about $85 million in its fiscal third which ends Feb. 1, and one-time pretax charges of about $30 million as it implements the plan in the nextthree quarters. The company estimated that $53 million in capital expenditurea will be required for plant consolidations in the remainde r of fiscal 2009 and infiscal 2010. south facility in Smithfield, Va., in December. • A Plantt City, Fla., plant that produces packaged meats, in September. • The Smithfielxd Packing Co. plant in N.C., in late summer. • A John Morrel plant in Great Bend, in July.
• The Farmlane Foods New Riegel, Ohio, plant, in • An packaged-meats planft in Hastings, Neb., in July. “Layoffs and plant closings are difficulft butnecessary decisions,” Smithfield CEO C. Larrgy Pope said in the release. “We know that this will creatre adversity for theemployees affected, and we will work with uniomn officials and others to determiner how we can provide assistances to our employees to find futurr employment. Also, we will be transferringf many employees to other In addition to the plant closings and job Smithfield Foods will reduce the number of its operating companiees in the pork division to threefrom seven.
Four existing independengt operating companies will be combined under the variouss business units of The SmithfieldrPacking Co., John Morrell & Co. and Farmlans Foods. “The plan will better alignm the company by enhancing operating efficiencies and increasing utilization rates to reducwe our overall manufacturing and overhead which will make Smithfield Foods a more competitive Pope said. Pope also said the compan y had entered into amendments of its Unitesd States and European credit facilities to reduce the applicable interesf coverage ratio for specified periods through the thirdc quarter offiscal 2010. The company reported salexs in its pork divisionof $2.
5 billion for the fiscal seconsd quarter, which ended Oct. 26, up 10.7 percent from $2.334 billion a year earlier. Overall second-quarter sales were $3.16 billion, up 14.6 percent from $2.75 billion a year Earnings for the quarterwere $4.2 or 3 cents a share, down 76 percenrt from $17.4 million, or 13 cents a the prior year.