Tyson Purchase Took Most of Year to Complete

Northwest Arkansas

by Talk Business & Politics ([email protected]) January 7, 2002 12:00 am 56 views 

The biggest deal in Northwest Arkansas of 2001 almost became no deal at all. And when the final debris fell from Tyson Foods’ $4.6 billion purchase of IBP Inc., nearly nine months had passed since the stormy Tyson-IBP relationship began.

Tyson announced the original agreement on Jan. 1, but it was not official until Sept. 28 after a lengthy court battle and attempts by Tyson to pull out of the deal. When all was said and done, the merger jumped Tyson from No. 257 on the Fortune 500 list in 2000 to an estimated No. 74 in the list of the largest companies in the United States. Tyson had $7.16 billion in revenue in 2000, while South Dakota-based IBP more than doubled that with $16.95 billion.

Also, the merger now has Tyson controlling 28 percent of the meat market, 25 percent of the chicken market and 18 percent of the country’s pork market.

(Click here Triad Health Partners Inc. of Dallas completed its purchase of Springdale’s Northwest Health System Inc. and Bentonville’s Bates Memorial Hospital in April for $2.4 billion. And Northwest Health System came in at No. 5 on the list when it began construction of the $63 million Northwest Medical Center of Benton County in Bentonville in November.

The University of Arkansas’ expansion of Reynolds Razorback Stadium was a repeat from the 2000 list. The reason: It’s original estimated cost of $51.8 million was almost half the final actual figure of $106 million, which came in at No. 3. It officially opened on a miserable night in Fayetteville with a driving rainstorm and the powerful Tennessee Volunteers in town. UT rallied in the fourth quarter to spoil the opening of the state-of-the-art facility with a 13-3 win over the Razorbacks.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell in September put in a $70 million order for 6,000 53-foot domestic containers and a smaller number of container chassis from Wabash National Corp.

Arkansas Best Corp of Fort Smith sold its G.I. Trucking line to Estes Express Lines for $40 million, although the final completion of the deal is expected to be about $60 million.