Investors Earn 20 Percent for Adding Cake and Pickles to Breakfast

Investors Earn 20 Percent for Adding Cake and Pickles to Breakfast (Bloomberg)

With food prices expected to rise again this year, aggressive companies in the sector are looking for smaller businesses to gobble up, and thereby take a bigger bite out of your paycheck. Hillshire Brands Co. (HSH) is one of those aggressive sorts and is about to devour Pinnacle Foods Inc. for about $6.6 billion. Once purchased, Pinnacle’s product line will add Duncan Hines baking mixes and Vlasic pickles to Hillshire’s line of breakfast-meat products. HSH will pay about $18 per share (plus a half-share of Hillshire stock) for each share of Pinnacle. In the end, HSH ends up paying a 20% premium for Pinnacle shares. And investors now have the chance to add cake and pickles to their breakfast menus.