GREELEY - The U.S. Department of Justice has terminated an investigation into a proposed merger of JBS S.A. and Pilgrim's Pride Corp., the two meat companies announced Oct. 14.

JBS, the world's largest beef producer and based in Brazil, announced on Sept. 16 that it intended to purchase a controlling interest in Pittsburgh, Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride, one of the biggest poultry producers in the United States. Pilgrim's Pride had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September.

"Today is an exciting day for JBS and Pilgrim's Pride," said Wesley M. Batista, president and CEO of Greeley-based JBS USA Holdings, a subsidiary of JBS S.A. "With today's decision by the U.S. Department of Justice, JBS has been granted the opportunity to enter into the U.S. poultry industry, pending approval from the bankruptcy court. We thank the U.S. Department of Justice for their thorough and timely review of this transaction and we look forward to working with Pilgrim's to honor its tradition."

Under the terms of its Chapter 11 reorganization, Pilgrim's Pride agreed to sell 64 percent of its new common stock to JBS USA for $800 million in cash. Pilgrim's Pride said in a new release that it anticipates the plan to be approved by the court in time for it to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of December.

R-CALF, a Montana-based organization representing cattle producers, had protested the merger to the Justice Department because it feared it would give JBS too much control of U.S. meat production.

"The foundation of our concern is that beef and poultry are competing substitute protein products in the consumer market and that the merger would allow JBS to arbitrarily increase and decrease poultry production and/or raise and lower poultry prices within its fully integrated poultry division to manipulate both the demand for beef and the price for live cattle," Max Thornsberry, R-CALF president, said in an Oct. 7 statement.

Pilgrim's Pride employs about 41,000 workers in facilities in 12 states, Puerto Rico and Mexico.