Shares of Agro Tech Foods surged 8.09% to Rs 410.05 on Tuesday, 29 November 2011, after the company made the announcement during trading hours that day.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 127.10 points, or 0.79%, to 16,135.44.

On BSE, 1.64 lakh shares were traded in the counter compared with average volume of 9,304 shares over the past two weeks.

The stock hit a high of Rs 449.95 and a low of Rs 422.10 so far during the day.

ConAgra Foods, on Tuesday, 29 November 2011, bought 8.93 lakh shares, or 3.67% stake of Agro Tech Foods (ATFL) from a third party for an aggregate amount of Rs 51.82 crore.

ConAgra earlier held 48.11% stake, or 1.17 crore shares, in ATFL. After the additional stake purchase, its holding rose to 51.77%, or 1.26 crore shares.

Net profit of Agro Tech Foods rose 15.01% to Rs 7.97 crore on 3.35% decline in net sales to Rs 182.18 crore in Q2 September 2011 over Q2 September 2010.

ATFL is in the business of marketing food and food ingredients to consumers and institutional customers. The company has also expanded its brand portfolio to products such as Sundrop peanut butter and Act II popcorn among others.

ConAgra Foods is one of North America's leading food companies, with brands in 97% of America's households. Consumers find Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Egg Beaters, Hebrew National, Hunt's, Marie Callender's, Orville Redenbacher's, PAM, Peter Pan, Reddi-wip, Slim Jim, Snack Pack and many other ConAgra Foods brands in grocery, convenience, mass merchandise and club stores. ConAgra Foods also has a strong business-to-business presence, supplying frozen potato and sweet potato products as well as other vegetable, spice and grain products to a variety of well-known restaurants, foodservice operators and commercial customers.