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By Bloomberg

Marfrig Global Foods SA, a supplier of meat to McDonald’s Corp. and Burger King Worldwide Inc., said its chief executive officer is stepping down.

Sergio Rial, the former Cargill Inc. and Bear Stearns executive who delivered on pledges to improve leverage levels at the Sao Paulo-based food company, will be replaced on Feb. 16 by Martin Secco Arias, head of Marfrig Beef Southern Cone, the company said in a regulatory filing today. Arias has been at Marfrig since 2007, when the company acquired his family’s meatpacker Tacuarembo in Uruguay.

Rial focused on reducing debt since replacing founder Marcos Molina in January 2014. Shares rose 21 percent since he took over as CEO, compared with a 16 percent gain by JBS SA and Minerva SA’s 20 percent loss. The company’s $775 million of bonds due 2020 returned 19 percent to investors last year, topping gains among 100 junk-rated food companies with at least $200 million outstanding.

Marfrig is lowering borrowing costs and generating free cash flow for the first time since it went public in 2007 after selling assets and closing plants while benefiting from increased beef exports from South America. Fitch Ratings boosted the company’s credit rating one level to B+, four steps below investment grade, on Nov. 4, after a similar decision by Standard & Poor’s two weeks earlier.

“The strategy of Marfrig Global Foods will not change,” Arias said in the filing. “Our commitment to pursuing positive free cash flow, margin expansion, sustainable growth and a multi-annual deleveraging process remains the same.”

Under Rial, Marfrig sold the Seara processed-food units in Brazil and leather tanneries in Uruguay to JBS for 5.8 billion reais ($2.2 billion) in debt and is planning to sell shares in its Northern Ireland-based Moy Park Ltd and U.S.-based Keystone units.