DFA will acquire the assets, rights, interests, and properties associated with Dean Foods’ 44 fluid and frozen facilities
Dairy Farmers of America has agreed to acquire Dean Foods’ majority assets. (Credit: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)
Dean Foods has announced Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) as the winning bidder to acquire its majority of operations following an extensive sale process and a competitive auction as part of its Chapter 11 process.
DFA is set to purchase a significant portion of Dean Foods’ business operations in a deal valued at around $433m.
Under the deal, DFA will purchase the assets, rights, interests, and properties associated with the firm’s 44 fluid and frozen facilities.
Prairie Farms Dairy will also acquire certain assets of Dean Foods
Under the court-supervised sale process, Dean Foods also announced that Prairie Farms Dairy has been selected to purchase the assets, rights, interests, and properties associated with the eight additional facilities, two distribution branches, and certain other assets for $75m in cash.
Dean Foods has selected Mana Saves McArthu and Producers Dairy Foods to purchase the facilities in Miami of Florida and Reno of Nevada. The company has selected Harmoni to acquire Uncle Matt’s business.
Dean Foods president and CEO Eric Beringause said: “Dean Foods has strong and long-standing relationships with DFA and Prairie Farms Dairy.
“We are pleased that through these transactions, substantially all of our processing assets will continue to operate as dairies and will be owned by our dairy farmer partners with the resources, experience and industry expertise to continue to succeed in the current market environment.”
Subject to Bankruptcy Court approval, the deals are expected to be completed by the end of this month.
Davis Polk & Wardwell and Norton Rose Fulbright are acting as legal advisors to Dean Foods, while Evercore is serving as its investment banker and Alvarez & Marsal is acting as its financial advisor.
Based in Dallas of Texas, Dean Foods is a major processor and direct-to-store distributor of fresh fluid milk and other dairy and dairy case products in the US.
With around 15,000 employees, the company has over 50 national, regional and local dairy brands, as well as private labels.
In February this year, New Zealand-based cooperative Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) agreed to acquire a 50% stake in Israeli agritech company Afimilk for around NZD108.7m ($69m).