DFA Officially Sells Two Former Dean Foods Milk Plants
Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) has finalized the sale of two former Dean Foods Company milk processing plants located in De Pere, Wis. and Harvard, Ill. The purchaser of both plants stems from a new partnership between New Dairy Opco (“New Borden”), who acquired all of the assets of the now bankrupt Borden Dairy Co., and Select Milk Producers, according to Capstone Headwaters, the market investment banking firm that helped facilitate the sale of the two plants.
As stated by Capstone, the two plants were required to be sold by order of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in the antitrust enforcement action brought by the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Attorneys General of each of the State of Wisconsin and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
“We are proud to have worked with the parties and the Department of Justice to facilitate these sales,” said Paul Janson, the Capstone Headwaters chief operating officer. “Our investment banking and restructuring teams were tenacious and effective in completing these sales within a compressed timeframe, in a difficult dairy market, and in the middle of a pandemic.”
DFA acquired the two plants in November 2019 shortly after the Dean Foods bankruptcy. The purchase price of the plants has not been disclosed.