Dean Foods has announced that Industrial Realty Group has terminated a deal whereby it agreed to acquire bankrupt Dean’s Hawaii business. As a result, Dean’s Honolulu facility will cease operations at the end of April.
Under the deal, Industrial Realty Group agreed ‘in principle’ to buy US milk producer Dean’s Meadow Gold Hawaii operations, including the assets, rights, interests and properties relating to its Hilo and Honolulu facilities.
Dean Foods 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 Dean’s assets by 30 March 2020.
Following the termination of the prospective deal with Industrial Realty Group, Dean has reached an agreement with an unnamed party for the sale of its Hawaii business, with the exception of the Honolulu facility.
The new agreement is subject to final approval by the Bankruptcy Court.
Commenting on the news, Dean’s president and CEO Eric Beringause said: “We are extremely disappointed that we were unable to finalise an agreement for Industrial Realty Group to acquire our Hawaii operations.
“This was a difficult decision but, ultimately, given the timeline of our Chapter 11 restructuring we were not able to find a path forward that would enable our Honolulu operations to continue through our comprehensive court-supervised sale process.
“That said, we are pleased to have reached an agreement in principle for our Hilo facility and that an interested party intends to continue the plant’s operations and maintain the Meadow Gold Hawaii brand name.”
Earlier this month, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) was named the winning bidder to acquire a ‘substantial portion’ of Dean’s operations, including 44 of the firm’s fluid and frozen facilities. Sales were also agreed with Mana Saves McArthur, LLC, Producers Dairy Foods, Harmoni and Prairie Farms Dairy.
Dean Foods anticipates completing all transactions by early May.
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