Brazil's JBS, the world's biggest beef producer, has a new chief executive, Wesley Batista, who will be taking control at a time when the company is entering a new phase.

After snapping up a long list of major distressed and attractively priced companies in the animal protein sector, the company has reached a certain economy of scale, according to Batista, whose focus will now be to squeeze returns from the investments made over the past half decade.

The following is a list of JBS's successful and unsuccessful international bids in the past years:

-2005 - JBS took its first step abroad buying 85% of beef producer Swift Armor, Argentina's largest beef processor, for $200 million.

-2007 - It bought U.S.-based Swift Foods for $225 million and assumed its heavy debt load estimated at over $1 billion, a few months after going public on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange.

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Check out this interview with JBS CEO Wesley Batista here.