Post Holdings to buy Bob Evans Farm for $1.5 Billion

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20, 2017 - Post Holdings, the maker of Honey Bunches of Oats and Grape-Nuts cereals, is buying Bob Evans Farms for $77 a share, a deal valued at about $1.5 billion. Bob Evans, which sold its restaurants earlier this year to Golden Gate Capital, sells frozen foods such as refrigerated potato, pasta, and pork sausages under Bob Evans, Owens, Country Creek and Pineland Farms brands. The deal comes months after St. Louis-based Post Holdings agreed to buy British breakfast cereal brand Weetabix for 1.4 billion pounds ($1.8 billion). In a release, Post Holdings said the transaction is expected to close by the end of Post's second quarter of fiscal 2018.