Hostess, maker of Twinkies, has bought food giant Smucker’s for $5.6 billion

Classic US snack maker Hostess Brands has been bought out by rival food giant JM Smucker’s in a $5.6bn (£4.5bn) deal.

Shares of the company known for brands including Twinkies, Donettes and Ho Hos jumped after the news.

Smoker’s is known for its fruit preserves and peanut butter.

Some of America’s biggest food brands — including PepsiCo, Oreo maker Mondelez International and Cheerios maker General Mills — have reportedly shown interest in buying Hostess.

Smucker said it expects the deal to be completed in the third quarter of the current fiscal year.

Hostess, based in Lenexa, Kan., manufactures several popular household brands, including Ding Dongs, Zingers and Voortman cookies and chips.

The company, which currently has about 3,000 employees, can trace its roots back more than a century when the first Hostess CupCake was sold.

In 2012, Hostess filed for bankruptcy after talks with its labor union failed, leaving it financially unviable.

It was rescued from bankruptcy in 2013 by investment firms Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co.

Four years after its near collapse, Hostess Brands has returned to the stock market and is now listed on the Nasdaq trading platform in New York.

Smucker, headquartered in Ohio, which in addition to its jams and jellies owns coffee and pet food brands, has a stock market value of about $14 billion.

This deal represents the latest major acquisition this year in the US food manufacturing sector.

Last month, Campbell’s Soup announced it had bought Rao’s pasta sauce company Sovos Bands for $2.7 billion.

The month before that, M&M’s owner Mars acquired natural foods company Kevin, while consumer goods giant Unilever bought frozen yoghurt brand Yasuo in June.

Shares of Hostess Brands ended the trading day in New York up more than 19%. Smucker shares closed down 7%.