Monday, February 12, 2007 9:26 PM CST
Buyout won’t bump bagels
Blackstone Group purchases Lender’s parent company
By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
hmeeker@jg-tc.com
MATTOON -- An executive at Lender’s Bagels said a corporate buyout will not punch a hole in bagel production here.
Of course, the buyout of Pinnacle Foods Group, Inc. by Blackstone Group, which reportedly includes a $1.3-million cash payout, involves more than the acquisition of Lender’s Bagels production and its employees in Mattoon.
According to the Associated Press, Pinnacle employs more than 3,000 workers at seven manufacturing plants across the country. Pinnacle produces Duncan Hines baking mixes, Hungry Man and Swanson frozen dinners and Vlasic pickles. Even in Mattoon, Lenders produces french toast sticks in addition to its famous bagel line.
Pinnacle brands now also include Celeste pizza, Van de Kamp’s and Mrs. Paul’s seafood, Log Cabin and Mrs. Buttersworth’s syrups, Armour canned meat, Lender’s Bagels and Aunt Jemima breakfast foods.
But the good news locally is this transaction will not have a major effect on operations at the Mattoon Lender’s Bagels plant, said David Thomas, director of operations for the Mattoon facility and the Pinnacle Foods plant at St. Elmo.
“This is not a negative thing for this factory or the one in St. Elmo,” Thomas said Monday. “There will be no restructuring at either plant.”
The Lender’s plant in Mattoon employs about 350, while 110 workers help produce syrup products and Open Pit barbecue sauce in St. Elmo, he explained.
This is the third acquisition involving the Lender’s plant in recent years. Kellogg acquired Lender’s from Kraft Foods. Then Aurora Foods was involved in an acquisition with Pinnacle in 2004. Lender’s opened its bagel plant in Mattoon more than 20 years ago, and also started its famous Bagelfest soon after.
The deal is the second acquisition for New York-based Blackstone in less than a week, AP reported. On Friday, Blackstone completed its $23-billion purchase of Chicago-based Equity Office Properties Trust. Blackstone prevailed with an offer of $55.50 a share after Vornado Realty Trust of Paramus, N.J., withdrew its bid of $56 a share, wire reports stated.
Pinnacle is jointly owned by affiliates of J.P. Morgan Partners LLC (now known as CCMP Capital Advisors, LLC), J.W. Childs Associates, L.P., CDM Group and by former bondholders of Aurora Foods Inc.
Former Kraft Foods Inc. Chief Executive Roger Deromedi has been selected to become chairman when the deal closes, the companies said in announcing the deal Monday. In addition to the cash payment, the buyers will assume about $900 million in debt, according to a Pinnacle spokesman.
If those are not familiar names to Mattoon residents, then consider Murray Lender, whose family started a bagel business 70 years ago on the East Coast. He was the face of Lender’s for many years in Mattoon. He helped add the friendly chutzpah to the early Bagelfests and to other promotional events like the bagel bakings at the plant site that set world records in 1996 and 1998 -- the first weighed 554 pounds and the second was 714 pounds. The second record was not surpassed until a couple of years ago.
Thomas said Lender’s will still get involved in community events, especially Bagelfest.
“Oh yes, we’ll still be involved in the community here,” he said.
Contact Herb Meeker at hmeeker@jg-tc.com or 238-6869.
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Fxiccxypxc wrote on May 10, 2007 11:31 AM: