Tyson Foods says CEO will step down at end of year

Tyson Foods said Monday that CEO Donnie Smith will step down at the end of the year and be replaced by the meat producer's president, Tom Hayes.

The company, which makes Tyson chicken, Jimmy Dean sausage and Ball Park hot dogs, also reported disappointing earnings results for the fourth quarter and weak outlook for the year.

Its shares fell 15 percent in morning trading.

Smith, who is 56, has been CEO of Tyson since 2009 and has worked for the company for 36 years. He will step down on Dec. 31 and will be available to consult with Tyson for three years, the company said.

Hayes, 51, was named president in June and will continue to hold that title when he becomes CEO.

Tyson reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $391 million, or $1.03 per share.

Earnings, adjusted for pretax gains, were 96 cents per share. The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.24 per share.

The Springdale, Arkansas, company posted revenue of $9.16 billion in the period, down from $10.51 billion a year ago.

For the year, the company reported profit of $1.77 billion, or $4.53 per share. Revenue was reported as $36.88 billion.

Tyson said it expects earnings for the full year ending September 2017 to be between $4.70 per share and $4.85 per share. That's below the $4.99 per share analysts expected, according to FactSet.

Shares of Tyson Foods Inc. fell $10.13, or 15.1 percent, to $57.23 in morning trading Monday.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on TSN at https://www.zacks.com/ap/TSN

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Keywords: Tyson Foods, Earnings Report