General Mills Inc. priced its previously announced underwritten public offering of 22,727,273 shares of its common stock to partly fund its purchase of Blue Buffalo Pet Products Inc.

The Minneapolis-based packaged foods producer said the shares will be offered at $44 apiece, for a total purchase price of approximately $970 million, excluding the underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses.

In addition to the equity offering, General Mills will also use the net proceeds from a senior unsecured notes offering, the incurrence of debt under its U.S. commercial paper program and cash on hand to finance the Blue Buffalo deal.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are acting as joint book-running managers and representatives of the underwriters for the common stock offering, while Barclays Capital Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC are also acting as joint book-running managers.