Sale of Dole Unit Gives Seagram’s Lots of Juice

Westlake Village-based Dole Food Co. last week finished selling the bulk of its worldwide fruit juice business to the Seagram Co., the Canadian beverage company that is acquiring a majority stake in Universal City’s MCA entertainment conglomerate.

Under terms of the previously announced deal, Seagram acquired for $240 million the right to use the Dole brand name in marketing juice products in every country but Japan, as well as Dole’s fruit beverage manufacturing capabilities in the United States and Europe.

The acquisition is expected to give Seagram, which already owned the Tropicana fruit juice label, annual juice sales of $1.8 billion, making its new Tropicana Dole Beverages division the largest branded juice business in the world. The Dole assets had estimated annual sales of $320 million.

The agreement with Seagram specifically excludes Dole’s juice business in Japan, which the company last week sold for $30 million to Snow Brand Milk Products, its longtime Japanese joint venture partner. Dole will also hold on to its canned pineapple juice business, since pineapple juice is one of the products with which the Dole name is most closely associated, said Brett Tibbitts, Dole’s general counsel.

The sale is part of a long-term strategy by Dole to shed its poorly performing divisions. In March, the company announced that it would sell its California-based dried fruit business to Stockton-based Sun Diamond Growers for $100 million.