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Bloomberg: Tyson Nearing Deal To Buy McDonald’s Chicken Nugget Supplier

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Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale is nearing a deal expected to top $3 billion to acquire Keystone Foods LLC of West Chester, Pennsylvania, Bloomberg reported Friday.

Keystone supplies chicken nuggets to McDonald’s Corp. and is owned by Marfrig Global Foods SA of Brazil.

Marfrig announced in May that it had narrowed the bidders for Keystone to five. Citing “two people familiar with the matter,” Bloomberg reported that the company wants to gain more than $3 billion from the sale.

Cargill Inc. of Wayzata, Minnesota; Cofco Ltd. of China; an unnamed Japanese company; and George’s Inc. of Springdale have also submitted bids for Keystone, according to Bloomberg.

Tyson CEO Tom Hayes told TheStreet in June that the company wasn’t done looking for acquisitions.

“We are going to be acquisitive,” Hayes said in the interview. “It doesn’t mean that it will be another year and a half [until another deal] or this fiscal or calendar year, but it may.”

The Keystone deal would likely be the company’s biggest since last year’s $4.2 billion purchase of AdvancePierre Foods Holdings Inc. of Cincinnati, but it’s done other deals in the interim: the $850 million purchase of the poultry rendering and blending assets of American Proteins Inc. of Cumming, Georgia, and its subsidiary, AMPRO Products Inc.; and the purchase of an organic chicken producer, Tecumseh Poultry LLC of Waverly, Nebraska, for an undisclosed price.

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