Pilgrim's Sells Plant, Pays off DIP Finance
US - Pilgrim's Pride has officially announced the sael of its plant in Farmerville, Louisiana to Foster Farms and it has also fully repaid its $450 million debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing facility.Pilgrim's Pride Corporation announced on 22 May that it has completed the sale of its chicken complex in Farmerville, Louisiana, to Foster Farms for approximately $72.3 million. The final sale price was adjusted for associated inventory and other reimbursements. The Farmerville complex includes a processing facility, a cook plant, two hatcheries, a feed mill and a protein conversion plant.
Separately, Pilgrim's Pride announced that it had fully repaid its $450 million debtor-in-possession financing facility as of 15 May 2009. As such, the proceeds of the Farmerville sale will be held in a cash collateral account and used for general corporate operating purposes as needed.
As previously announced, the company and certain subsidiaries filed voluntary Chapter 11 petitions on 1 December 2008. The Chapter 11 cases are being jointly administered under case number 08-45664. The company's operations in Mexico and certain operations in the United States were not included in the filing and continue to operate as usual outside of the Chapter 11 process.