JBS-Friboi, the largest beef producer in Latin America, has agreed to buy US meat packer Swift for about $225 million (€167 million), creating the world's largest meat company.

The takeover was the biggest in a series of acquisitions for JBS-Friboi. Swift is the third-largest US beef and pork processor, with annual sales of $9 billion. Based in Greeley, Colorado, it is also the largest beef processor in Australia.

The deal gives the Brazilian company access to the tightly controlled US meat market.

Analysts had expected Swift to be sold all or in part to US meat companies. "Based on recent conversations we've had with Smithfield, Tyson and others in the meat industry, the hope was for consolidation and not a new player," John McMillin, a Prudential Securities analyst, said.

The Brazilian company started exporting fresh meat in 1997 and began its international expansion in August 2005, when it bought Argentine meat processor Swift Armour for $200 million. JBS-Friboi now has five plants in Argentina.

JBS-Friboi, which went public on Brazil's Sao Paulo Stock Exchange two months ago, will pay $225 million in cash and assume $1.2 billion of Swift's debt, the companies said in a statement, valuing the deal at $1.4 billion.

The company was founded by Sobrinho brothers Jose Batista and Juvensor as a business buying cattle from farmers to resell to meatpackers. The brothers opened their own butcher's shop in 1953 and later expanded through takeovers of several slaughterhouses.

JBS-Friboi slaughters about 22,600 cattle a day.