Castle & Cooke May Divide in 2 to Form Dole, Real Estate Firms

Castle & Cooke Inc., the Los Angeles-based holding company for Dole Food Co., said Thursday that it is “actively considering” splitting itself into two separate corporations.

One company would be for the Dole business and the other would include the parent’s extensive Hawaiian and mainland real estate holdings. Both companies would be publicly traded, Chairman David M. Murdock said.

Splitting the company would enable the stock market, shareholders and lenders to analyze each of the two different businesses by the standards of the industry in which it operates, Murdock said.

He offered no elaboration on the reasons for the move.

The news was released after close of the New York Stock Exchange, where Castle & Cooke’s shares closed unchanged at $34 for the day.

Dole, the world’s largest producer of pineapple, also markets other fruits and vegetables, some of them grown in California. Castle & Cooke owns an entire Hawaiian island, Lanai, and has holdings in California and Arizona. The firm had $112.3 million in net profit last year on $2.47 billion in revenue.

Murdock unveiled the planned corporate change at Castle & Cooke’s annual meeting in Honolulu, telling shareholders that the company is undertaking a study to determine the best method of accomplishing it.

Management has determined that such a restructuring would be in the best interests of shareholders, employees and “the community at large,” Murdock said.

Murdock obtained control of Castle & Cooke in 1985 and owns more than 25% of its shares.

“I plan to keep my interest in both companies,” Murdock told the meeting Thursday. “In regard to recent speculation, I have no plans to take either business private, although I have had a policy of buying stock from time to time in companies that I operate.”

Just last year, Murdock bought out Flexi-Van Corp., which he took public in 1987 by selling its shares to Castle & Cooke’s shareholders.