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• ConAgra Foods' brands include Banquet and Chef Boyardee. Cargill, based in Minnetonka, Minn., is a producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services. Arden Hills, Minn.-based CHS is an agribusiness owned by farmers, ranchers and cooperatives across the U.S.
• The companies expect to receive cash distributions from Ardent Mills at closing. Total proceeds are estimated to be between $800 million and $1 billion.
• All three companies will have representation on the Ardent Mills board.
• Ardent Mills will be run as a joint venture, with Dan Dye serving as its CEO once the new company is formed. Dye is currently president of Horizon Milling. ConAgra Mills President Bill Stoufer will become Ardent's chief operating officer and chief integration officer.
• Ardent Mills' headquarters will be determined at a later date. Its formation is expected to be finished later this year.
• ConAgra Foods shares rose 4 cents to close at $34.73 after rising as high as $34.95 earlier in the session to its highest level since Aug. 1997.
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• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota Sens. Tim Johnson and John Thune have introduced legislation that would allow local communities to assume ownership of nine historic cemeteries in the Black Hills.
• The cemeteries are currently owned by the U.S. Forest Service, but the communities have acted as caretakers for generations under special use permits issued by the government.
• Thune says the current arrangement causes headaches for communities that have been managing the cemeteries and places unnecessary liability on the Forest Service.
• Johnson says the so-called Black Hills Cemetery Act allows for a permit solution to the temporary special use permits.
• The bill affects Englewood, Galena, Hayward, Mountain Meadows, Roubaix, Nemo, Rockerville, Silvery City and Cold Springs cemeteries.
• All are pioneer-era cemeteries in the Black Hills.
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