SIERRA FOODS, INC.

Sierra Foods, Inc. in the News

THE UNIMARK GROUP ANNOUNCES THE FILING OF A LAWSUIT-NOVEMBER 6, 2006

• Click here to view the temporary restraining order (in PDF format, size 2.1 MB).
• Click here for the original petition (in PDF format, size 8.7 MB).

DNE launches year-round fresh lemon program

(May 20) FORT PIERCE, Fla. - DNE World Fruit Sales has positioned itself as the sole year-round supplier of fresh - not from storage - lemons in North America following a partnership with a pair of grower-shippers in Mexico and California.

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Fruit company has new major owner

A Chicago investment company has bought a controlling interest in the UniMark Group, a Denton County-based fruit company with holdings in Mexico, replacing the board and naming Dallas lawyer Jakes Jordaan as its president and chief executive, the company said Friday.

Cardinal Growth, a private equity investment group, invested about $4.2 million in UniMark, which trades over the counter, after a series of transactions that radically changed the company's core business.

A long-standing arrangement to supply Mexican lemon juice and oil to the Coca-Cola Co. ended when the soft drink company paid UniMark $16 million to cancel the contract and took control of the juice plant. In August, Del Monte bought UniMark's money-losing cut-fruit business and assumed the unit's debts. Cardinal took control after one of financier George Soros' investment funds liquidated its holdings, said Jordaan, who had been chairman of the board. He relinquished the chairmanship but remains on the board.

UniMark, based in Bartonville near Flower Mound and begun about 12 years ago as a marketer of Mexican refrigerated fruit segments, will now concentrate on 7,000 acres of lemon groves it developed near Victoria in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, southeast of Monterrey, Jordaan said.

The company plans to export high-quality branded lemons to the United States, Europe, Japan and Hong Kong under the Sierra Citrus brand.

The northeastern Mexican growing season provides UniMark with a shipping window -- between July and Thanksgiving -- with little competition from California's giant Sunkist brand, he said, adding that it expects to become the country's biggest lemon supplier after Sunkist.

Barry Shlachter, (817) 390-7718 bshlachter@star-telegram.com
Copyright 2004 Star-Telegram, Inc.

UniMark completes deal with Coke

UniMark Group of Bartonville said it has closed the sale of its juice processing plant at Victoria for $3.5 million in cash to Coca-Cola's export group.

The company also said Monday that because of increased costs and lack of liquidity for its stock and the "operational challenges facing the company" that it has authorized directors to explore "strategic alternatives."

UniMark operates five juice bottling plants and a 7,100-acre lemon grove, all in Mexico. Last year it sold its distribution centers in McAllen for $14.5 million. UniMark has a sales office in Bartonville, Texas, but most of its 1,200 employees are at its Mexican facilities.

UniMark has gone through difficult times in recent years, warning investors that a bankruptcy filing could be likely. The company has said that much of its trouble is due to being dependent largely on a single customer, Del Monte, which distributes UniMark's products in the United States.

UniMark did not return telephone calls to comment Monday. According to its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, losses totaling almost $80 million in the last three years have cut its shareholder equity from $48.7 million in 1998 to $17.5 million last year. Its stock was delisted from the NASDAQ National Market System in 2001 and the company's annual reports have contained going-concern red flag statements from auditors.

UniMark shares have sold for less than $1 for the past year.

Copyright 2003 Star-Telegram, Inc.

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