Dean Foods has completed the sale of its facility in Miami, Florida to Mana Saves McArthur for $16.5 million, marking the conclusion of all previously announced transactions.
The firm’s intended next step is to file a Chapter 11 plan that will determine, among other factors, the distribution of sale proceeds and the rights and treatment of all claims against Dean.
The US milk producer first announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, and a court-supervised sale process required interested parties to submit bids for the firm’s assets by 30 March 2020.
From the time of Dean’s initial bankruptcy announcement, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) had been the frontrunner to acquire the company’s operations. Earlier this year, DFA and Dean reached an agreement which would have made the dairy co-op the ‘stalking horse bidder’ in the auction-style sale process, but this subsequently fell through.
However, after deciding to go ahead and bid anyway, on 31 March DFA was named as the winning bidder to acquire a ‘substantial portion’ of the bankrupt firm’s business.
The completion of that $433 million sale, which encompassed the assets, rights, interests, and properties relating to 44 of Dean’s fluid and frozen facilities, was announced on 1 May.
On the same day, Dean completed the sales agreed with Producers Dairy Foods, who acquired Dean’s Reno facility and Prairie Farms Dairy, who, for $75 million took over eight of Dean’s facilities and two distribution branches, along with other assets.
Last month, it was revealed that Industrial Realty Group had terminated a deal whereby it agreed to acquire Dean’s Hawaii business – and as a result, the firm’s Honolulu facility would close.
Dean said at the time that it had reached an agreement with an unnamed prospective buyer for the purchase of the rest of its Meadow Gold business. The completion of this transaction was announced on 30 April, and the purchaser has been named as MGD Acquisition.
The firm has also completed the sales of its Uncle Matt’s business and ‘Berkeley Farms’ trademark to Harmoni and Producers Dairy Foods respectively.
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