About a year ago, the first meeting between Dole and Total Produce regarding a potential takeover took place. These discussions were “in an early stage, and it took Dole a year to complete the process,” said Rory Byrne, manager of Total Produce, in an interview with Produce Business UK. That was before Dole announced it was considering a stock-market flotation, and long before it was leaked that Belgian Greenyard was negotiating with Dole. In the end, Dole didn’t have a flotation and wasn’t acquired by the Belgians either; the Irish joined the multinational last month.
The Irish giant has chosen a calm takeover that will also be advantageous to the owner of Dole, David Murdock. “We were flexible and we wanted to be certain it would also work for us in the long term,” Rory said. Rory also thinks it’ll be better if the merger of the companies happened gradually. Regarding the perhaps low sales price of Dole – Total Produce paid 300 million dollar for 45 per cent of the shares – Rory says: “The price is in line with what can be expected based on market price for a company of a similar size, and Dole’s indebtedness was also taken into account.”
Total Produce took an interest in multiple companies in North America recently. For now, no large adjustments will be implemented in these companies. The Irish company wants to make a careful transition. In the long term, they might look at a different organisation of the overlapping activities, but for now, everything will remain as it was, Rory said reassuringly.