Scandal-plagued Brazilian meat packing giant JBS’s plans to sell off non-core assets will see its major cattle feedlot in southern Alberta sold back to its previous owner.
JBS USA announced Friday its JBS Food Canada arm has reached a deal to sell Lakeside Feeders, its cattle feedlot and “adjacent farmland” at Brooks, Alta. for $50 million to MCF Holdings — an arm of the feedlot’s previous owner, livestock trading firm Nilsson Bros. Inc.
The terms of the deal call for MCF to continue to supply cattle to JBS’ nearby beef packing plant at Brooks, which the Brazilian firm still owns.
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MCF said in JBS USA’s release that it also expects to offer employment to the feedlot’s and farm’s employees upon closing of the deal.
The two companies didn’t say when they expect that deal to close but noted its completion is “subject to regulatory review and approval.”
The feedlot, which has capacity for 75,000 head of cattle, has been managed as part of JBS’s Five Rivers Cattle Feeding unit, which also runs feedlots in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and Idaho.
JBS had also bought the former XL Foods beef plant as part of a $100 million deal with the Nilssons in 2013, exercising its option from an earlier deal to manage XL’s packing operations in the wake of a massive beef recall.
Edmonton-based Nilsson Bros. has remained active in other aspects of the beef business, including auction markets, livestock insurance and finance, feedlots and other livestock operations in the four western provinces.
JBS has said it would seek buyers for the Lakeside Feeders operation, among other assets, in the weeks since its controlling shareholders were ordered to pay a record-large fine, worth about $4.1 billion, arising from a major bribery and graft scandal in Brazil.
A court in Brazil had blocked a previous sale of JBS meat packing assets in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay to rival firm Minerva SA, but an appeals court overturned the ban on that sale Thursday, clearing the path for future JBS asset sales. — AGCanada.com Network
