Tyson Wins Hillshire Farms Sweepstakes—for $7.7B

Tyson Foods has won the bidding war to buy Hillshire Brands, topping an offer from rival Pilgrim's Pride by almost a billion dollars, the Wall Street Journal reports. Tyson will pay $63 a share in cash for Hillshire, which makes Jimmy Dean sausages and Ball Park franks, among other food products. The deal values the company at $7.7 billion. Pilgrim's Pride had offered $55 a share. Tyson's CEO explained the big offer by saying that companies like Hillshire "don't become available too often." (More mergers and acquisitions stories.)