Dairy Farmers of America will acquire a substantial portion of Dean Foods’ business operations. The deal follows a comprehensive sale process and a competitive auction as part of Dean's Chapter 11 process.

Pursuant to the agreement, which is subject to final approval by the Bankruptcy Court, DFA will acquire the assets, rights, interests, and properties relating to 44 of Dean Foods' fluid and frozen facilities for $433 million.

In addition, as part of the court-supervised sale process, Dean Foods has designated Prairie Farms Dairy as the winner of the assets, rights, interests, and properties relating to eight additional facilities, two distribution branches and certain other assets for $75 million in cash. Dean Foods has designated Mana Saves McArthur, LLC, and Producers Dairy Foods as winning bidders for the sale of the facilities located in Miami, Florida, and Reno, Nevada, respectively. Harmoni, Inc. has been designated as the winning bidder for the Uncle Matt’s business.

“We ran a competitive auction process and are pleased to have reached these agreements, which we believe represent the best path forward for our stakeholders,” said Eric Beringause, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dean Foods. “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. We are committed to completing these transactions as quickly as possible, and to ensuring a smooth transition for our customers.”

The agreements were reached following an auction conducted under the supervision of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. All agreements are subject to court approval and certain other closing conditions. A hearing to seek required court approvals is scheduled for April 3, 2020. Subject to Bankruptcy Court approval, the transactions are expected to close at the end of April 2020.

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP and Norton Rose Fulbright are serving as legal advisors to Dean Foods. Evercore is serving as its investment banker and Alvarez & Marsal is serving as its financial adviser.

Source: Dean Foods, which is solely responsible for the information provided and is wholly owned by the source. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any of the content contained in this information asset.