At the age of 86, David Murdock has a storied career in Corporate America. In 1982, he became the CEO of Flexi-Van Leasing (a company he now owns). Then a few years later, he became the CEO of Dole. And by the mid 1990s, he came on board as the CEO of Castle & Cooke.
Keep in mind that Murdock didn't even finish high school.
So, is he thinking of finally taking some time off? Not at all. In fact, he has filed to take Dole Food public.
Founded in 1851, Dole is the #1 or #2 in product categories like packaged salads, packaged fruit, and so on. No doubt, it's a big business. In the past 12 months, Dole posted revenues of $7.2 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $445 million. The fruit segment has roughly $5 billion in revenues.
However, Dole is not resistant from the economic problems. For example, in the first half of this year, revenues are off by 11%.
Yet, Dole has a fully-integrated operating platform that handles close to 200 products throughout 90 countries. The company also has a global storage supply chain that has the largest dedicated refrigerated containerized fleet in the world.
As for the IPO, it will help to pare down Dole's debt, which is about $1.9 billion. Plus, Murdock plans to sell shares in the offering (he is the sole shareholder).
Interestingly enough, he is no stranger to dealmaking. Back in 2003, he took Dole private (just as the private equity markets were heating up). The deal came to $2.5 billion.
The proposed stock ticker is "DOLE." Also, the lead underwriters include: Goldman, Sachs & Co. (NYSE: GS), BofA Merrill Lynch (NYSE: BAC), Deutsche Bank Securities, and Wells Fargo Securities (NYSE: WFC).
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The IPO Primer and The Complete M&A Handbook
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-15-2009 @ 4:10PM
BHorne01 said...
Who cares that Murdock didn't finish high school. Good for him and the thousands of us that didn't finish college (barely high school) and have made our own trail / path out of necessity.